Open precioushanded quarter monger–

Sidewalked and wastelanded,

Marseyed and bottle happy,

         Under which bridge will sleep befall thee tonight?

To life, passed out, beneath the scraping sky–

         Alcoholing a listlessed litany

         to any passerby

Who may overstep your comatose form:

Sprawled, babylike, across the broad expanse

         Of concrete day.

 

Are you hunting grounds of happy years

                  When the sun shone a hawkshadow–

Frisking like cloud laughter

                  In butterfly Spring?

Or do you snore in blind forget

                  Of yestertimes

                  More bitter than regret?

And which the winewash only thinly glazes.

 

         I shoe my concerns in distance,

                  where walks my soul with yours:

         Pinballing across four lanes

                  of honking cars–

Endreaching the stupor goal

                  that mirages just beyond

         this sad, sad story of ours.

 

                                                                                         

Spring 1985