Gene Mariani Poet Free verse

Nemo

He sat on the park bench
        The weight of ages
        Settled about his shoulders.
        Long dirty fingernails peeked
        From torn cotton gloves.
        A thin sweater, ripped and tattered,
        Barely provided protection,
        Battered shoes
        Their usefulness outlasted.
        But his eyes,
        Deep piercing blue
        Stared off seeing 
        A distant past.

        Every once in a while, he nodded
        As though agreeing
        With some unseen companion.
        On the bench close by
        A well worn book of verse,
        Passages meticulously marked,
        Marginal notes
        Painstakingly written in a
        Neat and cultured hand.

        Noticing me,
        He moved, retrieved
        His book; reverently closed it.
        Then gently, almost tenderly,
        Placed it in his coat pocket.

        Rising slowly and with pain,
        Glancing neither right nor left
        He shuffled off,
        With a certain pride,
        The gait of a man
        Once used to power and respect.
        A man who somehow,
        Had become flotsam in the
        Backwaters of life

        And I wept.

        © 1998 Eugene R. Mariani

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