Bread fails the vagrant
me to sustain,
queued for my daily handout.
The haggard woman ahead of me in line,
in a heavy yarn-thing,
rolls dough between toothless gums.
My second helping:
Crumbs from my beard
tumble at the bidding of my fingers,
grubbier than the quietude of derelict neighborhoods.
Behind me:
A slab of meatloaf on a hubcap,
nibbled by a man half-bathed in shadow,
savoring the last slice.
Outside, rain-soaked streets and,
Emanating from a sewer,
the harrowing tones of a tortured harmonica.
Nightmares flit among smog-smitten,
skull-white stars,
things seen, obscene, the twisted throes
of perilous ghosts,
of aborted fantasies
and debased delusions
of seas, and desert sands,
and sun-blasted mesas,
mid-chew, with unlaced boots
dipped in stagnant run-off,
unaware of pickled tears and pungent terrors
thawing around the edges of my face and mind.
To combat the hungry fear and frightful hunger,
I picture myself revisiting childhood, slumbering
in a pyjama cocoon, pooled in moonlight,
racing away from familiarity
via the propulsion of dreams.
Twilight requiems,
dust-moted street lights,
sinister fantasias
and the pervasive squalor
of wordless desire.
The inheritance of a dreamer:
undisclosed kingdoms
ruled by defrocked flamingoes
and bandy-legged stick bugs.
Insensate bread sustains a breathy fire within me,
sponging up the residue of grainy lethargy.
Half-man, half-shadow,
I linger in abandoned alleyways,
on the threshold of life,
burdened with a dulled sensorium,
darkly somnolent,
tilting toward the brink
of demented and emasculating decay.
Dust falls, or ashy snowflakes,
like manna, dewy honey,
dawn’s breath of frost catching in my rugged beard,
my tender eyelashes, ragged coat sleeves,
gathering in the pouches of my hollow eye sockets.
A friend, a savior, a charmer, a reason is dream,
who dogs my steps and steers my soleless tread,
until uncanny mundanity inundates me
with the dread of vacant days,
the dross of sorrows realized,
a red carpet for the morgue,
the siren call of the tomb.
Only light, love, fancy and bread
can nourish the human kernel,
the persistent breath,
which stokes the ardent ember within me,
the same forge my ancestors labored to adorn.
