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