staring through whats in front of us

first of all, street installations by the ironic and whimsical Mark Jenkins:
that hydrant is hollow, made of plastic wrap and clear tape.
he did a whole series of tape baby dolls, transparent and ghostly posted all over cities, hanging from street signs and buildings and taxi cabs... heres one in São Paulo:
and a particularly ridiculous one in warsaw:
and west virginia:
and then there's this:which made me think of a poem i came across in my daily digging for the right word
something about staring through whats in front of us
so i hunted it down online
finally found it and remembered why it had stayed with me
remembered why i don't want to live in the city for too long
remembered not to be that jackass that honks
not to wait for someone to make me happy.

Getting Where We're Going
by John Brehm

Surfeit of distance and the wracked mind waiting,
nipping at itself, snarling inwardly at strangers.
If I had a car in this town I'd
rig it up with a rear bumper horn,
something to blast back at the jackasses
who honk the second the light turns green.
If you could gather up all the hornhonks
of just one day in New York City,
tie them together in a big brassy knot
high above the city and honk
them all at once it would shiver
the skyscrapers to nothingness, as if
they were made of sand, and usher
in the Second Coming. Christ would descend
from the sky wincing with his fingers
in his ears and judge us all
insane. Who'd want people like us
up there yelling at each other, trashing
the cloudy, angelic streets with our
candywrappers and newspapers and coffeecups?
Besides, we'd still be waiting for
the next thing to happen in Heaven,
the next violin concerto or cotton candy
festival or breathtaking vista to open
beneath our feet, and thinking this place
isn't quite what it's cracked up to be,
and why in hell does everybody
want to get here? We'd still be
waiting for someone else to come
and make us happy, staring
through whatever's in front of us,
cursing the light that never seems to change.