Hopeless Nomadic Part 1
Cracked beer bottles and detached baby rattles in slightly untidy, black plastic wrappers.
No garbage can nor box or bag is exempt from the burrower’s thorough ransack.
Rancid rubbish, rich with unwanted tidbits,
And the bounty - immeasurable, infinite,
Relished like a relic, coddled like a child,
Winding and wild, like the Nile for miles.
The moon beams.
The clicks of the crickets and me
Listen closely to the loneliness approaching.
The wheels on that ghostly grocery cart hit a high note
When they collide in the dark with a pothole.
Impurities between your feet and the street,
A concrete imposter, potential disaster.
A botched blacktop bandage, an imbalanced disadvantage,
Where what's together comes apart, and dignifies the damage.
He and his one cart army at first alarm me,
but the creaking steel sings to me like remembering... my childhood chain-link tire swing.
It’s a memory worth more to me than a dozen dazzling diamond rings,
But I can see that this nomad, or so it seems,
Knows these kinds of secret things.
This man hears the singing too, I think.
He is King of No Man’s land, from the cracks in the cobblestone, to the coins in the sand, he's burned bridges on the mississippi and pissed into the rio grande
The secret keeper of stoplights and bar fights and side streets at twilight,
He never looks back but he's haunted by his hindsight
He’s not the type to invest his trust in much, or rely on luck; he defies deep rivers and digs through ruts. His greatest love is a homemade lunch.
His sights are narrow, eyes on the blue barrel with the three painted arrows,
Always coming back like a brave baby sparrow
Reluctant to relent and as unlikely to repent,
Isolated existence created a livelihood exempt
his prayer is a cardboard sign and his church is a tent.
We imagine his message says less than he meant.
His misshapen heart bent by liquor store lament
The drink did its best and the dope took the rest
Already been twice over again re-mended; just a needle and thread weaves two times through his neck, the only reason he's not three times as dead.
His welded shut blood vessels hustle for fixes, like a fox he has tricks for his misguided mission,
The quickest flip is to switch his addiction, suspend its vicious, loaded affliction
He's given up on forgiveness and no kind of Christian
I watch from my spot and get lost in this image
Copyright © Breezie Chrisman | Year Posted 2014
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