Ballad: Just Another Odd Guy

Ballad : Just another odd guy* He was just another odd guy With a self-abnegating smile He spun no known wilful ploy Enough – just look at him a while Others came to camp by the Seine And watch the folks saunter by His place by the Pont , it was plain No one ever wished to occupy He made no show of his wild child’s face Querying side-boards curled round ears Nor no look of pain would surface From behind the mask’s ravaged years He was just another odd guy With a self-abnegating smile Meek children looked him in the eye Where some gleam of mutual ties shone Babies blinked hardly an eye To take in his clucked smile forgone No hint of a past hung o’er him No woman came by with a flask Nor some grown lad with the shopping He emerged from behind a mask He spun no known wilful ploy Enough – just look at him a while No regrets sagged down his full lips His chin held firm and tipped upward Bushy brows spoke well of his tips Though crown to nose-bud bit wayward One could read weary clothes threadbare His shoes could speak of miles out-worn And the wriggly strands of his haïr Reminded one of wild thoughts torn Doves and crows alike found his hand Outstretched with crumbs from some table No sparrow stilled on wing sought land Without some morsel to unravel Weeks went by in screeching silence And still no sign of him rode where His winged friends kept in his absence The stone-slabbed bench warm through bare air Some unsuspecting passer-by Wrapped in lone airs comes to this spot Makes as if to stay with a sigh Yet moves along to some other plot He was just the other odd guy With the self-abnegating smile His trusted friends all gone to fly In weird worlds beyond the last mile All looking for that other guy With his empty hands and a smile He would spin no known wilful ploy Just remember him for a while • After posting the poem, I came across the line : « I’m just an average guy » in the Masqueradors’ song of 1969, so I’m constrained to change the same phrase in my poem to : « Just another odd guy. » Things like this happen when we use words. © T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013