Steel Trees

Concrete paths that never

meander

Steel trees offering no

shade

only light to banish

the stars

country boy never quite

familiar

with this city’s hustle

life

endless unknown faces all

timeless

share a single innate

desire:

I’m only trying to get

home.

This was the original verse to a piece that began life as a complaint on the sorry state of rush-hour traffic in Phoenix. Or more specifically, for me having to drive through that rush hour traffic. I was attempting to be a bit clever with the offset words and develop a poem within a poem—where I live now as compared to where I grew up, and the readily noticeable differences between the two worlds. The piece itself struck an harmonic chord with several of my friends who actually write poetry as craft—as opposed to dabbling as I do—and grew into a bit of a collaboration.

The second verse to this piece was written by a man that I disagree with frequently on politics, but whom I consider to be one of the best authors of deep, thought provoking poetry that I’ve ever read, and one of my best friends. Known in certain circles as Sufjan Simone, Verse II.

The links on the menu above, will take you to a bit of the history for particular verses and some of the thought processes that went into the creation of this piece.

If you would prefer to skip the history and commentary and go straight to the result of the collaboration, the final version is available here.