Deciding on a public object was pretty easy. I love subways. I love our subway. It makes LA a city in a way that population alone can't.

I wrote the red line a sonnet. I decided to use the Shakespearian structure as I find the Petrarchan structure is kind of hard to work in. The nice thing about working within a structure is that it forces me to be organized. I can segue with the breeze. I decided to use my stanzas like this:

Stanza One: Descent and Anticipation
Stanza Two: Journey and Communion
Stanza Three: Arrival and Ascent
Heroic Couplet: Reverant Summation

It took a few hours but I was pretty happy with the result. I confess the metre isn't in perfect iambs all the time. I will work harder on that next time. I also left a few words in prose as well.

The subway presented more of a challenge when it came to actually posting my annotation. There are cameras everywhere and I have heard others chided by booming voices from loud speakers for getting too close to the edge of the platform and leaning on railings and such. There are usually sheirffs floating around as well. Thankfully there was a lull in traffic and, with the help of Roommate E and Roommate M, I was able to tape it up next to a ticket machine without incident.

Here is the text:

Thick, hot, dirt curdled concrete air gives way
to cool, befeathered still of ever-night
Her rich, warm breath upon my neck does play
Too tense tendons gather me for her sight

She carries me off embraced in promise
wraps me with care in her cloak, ripe red
A quilt of leaves of the Bros. Thomas
Weaving a web of unerring steel thread

Her promise is delivered, as am I
The cool ever-night must be left behind
Of metropolises in this city
sprawled in gluttony, she is all I find.

Sketching out a path on tubes subterane
Romance of a city: sacred, urbane

Subways are wonderful, mysterious things. You go down into a hole and pop up another, into a new place to explore. They are what makes a city a city to me.

Living in Los Angeles, it's easy to feel removed from the rest of the city. Since I live in the San Fernando Valley I feel even more isolated. Hopping on the subway and heading off to a play or a concert or downtown to look at buildings makes me feel like I hale from a great center of culture and art. Gliding through the darkness together makes me feel connected to complete strangers. Riding the subway gives me the greatest sense of connection to my city that I have.