Charleston

[AlstonTowers]

edit.

Working the ciiiiiity, shrugs the fat man silently
as he [i]lumbers away, clutching a five-dollar bill [Lumbers? In what sense of the word?]
and a tin-foiled pizza. The sign, Will Work for $$!!!, [Really interesting use of symbols here - how would one read this out loud?]
is left behind to wither away in its own shame. [Away with the away perhaps?]

The lulu bag clinging to my shoulder [Yep, I like a bit of that personification, yesir.]
and the extra-large sunglasses that don't fit right
marks me as alien: a dream-walker,
a never-been never-will street-walker. [Maybe never-will be? 'A never-will street walker' is a bit more vague than 'never-been'.

Push the sidewalks until the heels
of your baby-pink feet burn in protest. Push [i] 
the sidewalks in thump, thump strides.
(See, it's all about the rhythm.) [Ha, nice and meta.]

werk the sidddy, chuckles the breakdancer [Does chuckles fit? He/she is part desperate/part defiant.]
on the corner of market street, shiny bucket
outstretched with part-defiance part-desperation. I dump [Again, this enjambment...not sure, man, not sure. Leaves the entry to the next line with the flat 'my' again. Enjambment gotta hit you in the face, hard.]
my cash in proudly. [Yeeeee, I like that.]

The bridge is massive and metal-bolded, [Massive? Metal-bolded? I'm not too sure about either of these words, especially metal-bolded. I am trying to visualize what that means but it's a bit of an empty image.]
backlit by construction projects and
dark river water lapping against marsh sand but [Backlit by dark river water? I don't know how that works. Needs a separation between backlit and the dark river water. I really like the image of the dark river watter lapping against marsh sand, the line works wonders by itself. It is only killed by the backlit construction projects.]

it's the silhouettes,
tucked in concrete corners,
that set fire to my willing mind:
thieves? rapists? killers?

[i]Work the city, whispers a Latino woman I walk by.
She holds a gray cigarette between
tired fingers; she blows gently.

Bit of a tired ending, it feels like. The previous stanza that ends 'thieves, rapists, killers' is emotional and quite striking, but the blowing gently of the latino woman makes me want more of the poem. Which, I suppose, is a good thing: only, there isn't anymore.

Generally I think you have some really nice lines tucked in there and an obvious understanding of rhythm and what makes a line sound fresh, but your overkill of enjambment and what I can only call a tiredness towards the end leaves the poem slightly petering out.

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