Cardboard City
(Where the streets are full of pity)
Last night! I met an old boxer
in an alley of cardboard;
he seemed glad to see me,
shouted me over for a fight!
I told him!
“Hey I’m not in your league”
“Young man.” He said. “That’s alright.”
“So! I suppose you’re going to leave me,
cos the forecast is for rain, you in
your fine mansion, mine, just a
bloody pain”
“It’s not corrugated you see
it just keeps letting in the damp.”
“But then again I guess,
that’s O.K, for a foolish old tramp.”
He told me!
“What’s the price of glory if one is
shackled to the past. Even my old
woman left me, took my purse in
pursuit of another man. To think
I really loved her, gave her all that I
could, the witch hankered for the
final count, then left me where I
stood!”
He rambled on discursively!
“Take me away from this
‘Cardboard City’ Wrap me up in
sentimental pity.
Help me roam within my native
‘Devon’ Chase illusive rainbows back
into heaven.”
“Its years of abusing whisky,
Its years of abusing gin,
Its years of perpetual hoar frosts
that hones this savage grin. For
here I lay beneath this lamp, I hope
you understand, with only a
watery moon for comfort and
above me, this single amp!”
“How do you think I feel, here?
In chains of formal sorrow,
replaying each vintage year
each round like no tomorrow!”
“Each morning still, I count the
homeless, watch the van collect
the corpse, I caress each nightly
affliction to ease each delusion
that warps.”
“So! Give an old man a second chance
to come out gamely fighting,
repay life’s referee, society
the uninviting.”
His bottle ran dry,
his words began to wound.
Here! In God’s own country
left high wide and marooned.
Yet like the mortal flame
he submits to the desolate night,
the municipal van empowered
to administer the ultimate rite.
No dawn able to invigorate
leaves this empty feeling in me
the morning dew edulcorates
while a soul in hell is set free!
© Harry J Horsman 1996
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