Frozen life
Vanquished, the night slides from the dawn
those cruel games over.
In the thin sliver of winter warm
this unkempt heir rose,
clung close by the odour of night-time survival,
a lumbering worthless mass,
giving grace to a God
long since passed.
Time slows, to a shudder in this cold,
the traveller’s sigh caught
for a moment, in the praised
blue light of dawn’s promise.
Until a rascal fox eye,
winks a reminder that time
is just borrowed,
from each desperate day’s grind.
Before the waking thoughts arise
in clean sheeted types,
to the sunrise streets
march these feral footbeats,
and with each treasure sack dug up
sorry morsels of last night’s bread
rattle hope down the pallet
of the un-gloved dregs.
Fighting the restless gulls and starlings
for high society’s titbits,
the discarded serving the discarded, starving
types in whose shoes you
could not last a ragged-breath mile in.
This extinguished dreamer, shattered for untold years
clutches his timeless, bench life, and
endures the frozen laughter of stars
(2014)
A couple of years ago I slept on my balcony and woke at 5am to the sound of a homeless man running off with a neighbours bin-bag, and then rooting through it in the bushes. I feel so sorry for him and those that live those kind of lives.
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