Happy New Year
Winter cold, and bones so old,
are not a good combination.
In a cardboard box, on his hands, old socks,
by the bins near the railway station,
old Joe settles down, near the edge of town,
trying to stop himself shaking,
living 'off the grid', like some feral kid,
a situation not of his making.
Homeless, a word, sounds absurd,
in a land that was fit for heroes.
The sounds of revelry spill from the pubs,
made by uncaring 'no marks' and 'zeroes'.
With one last breath, and a rattle of death,
he stares up at the starlit sky,
and the stars look down, on this pitiless town,
with no one questioning, why?
And his life ebbs away on the cold, hard clay,
among the garbage and human detritus.
Under a rime of frost, this poor soul is lost,
with his mortal remains left to spite us.
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