comments on “Rush Hour” version 4

One of my old poems comes to mind every so often. I grew up in a town called Sebastopol. I wrote a poem called “Sexual Sebastopol” and tried to make a sort of eros of the streets – the physical thing of the town. I ran across the poem in my recent rereading and thought there wasn’t much that worked about it. But the idea informs “Rush Hour”, the sensual hunger of the inanimate, how it wants to feel, how it must feel bound up with things & things. In their grip, acted upon, moved over.

So I revisited the accusatory voice of the first version of “Rush Hour”, the pointing-finger voice seeming to scold the street. In this version I was more interested in the street and its experience than in the commuters in their cars.