Tom the Tatters Man
TOM THE TATTERS MAN
The sidewalk creaked the old-ship-creak, cracking away a gorge at last;
asphalt split like wood, split-fast and bastions and toilets ------
overflowing fast; flooding through the deep dark cracks:
the Drunken Dance
Tom the Tatters Man, Tom and Ned ------- drowned whiskey white
wreaking around where harlequins astound; with wine and clowns
and nothing but buzzards around ------ they shot them all down,
they drank while death danced in their hands, heaving and hawing
til their heads swam
Alleys here and there strewn with vagabond boxes, boxed like shoes
too tight to make the fit ------ they'd all given up on the fix of life
every last one; the eldest and the young,
beggars all
Skyscraper shadows make a house of steely-steel thatched roofs
steely rust upon the alleyway proofs, the back is cold and stiff upon
morning whiffs....
of molten garbage
Defeat
Tom the Tatters Man did not despair, while here and there
molten garbage everywhere ------ in his socks and shoes,
molten in his mouth despite a tune, as he rose up and flinched
his morning love; a shot of whiskey at nine o'clock
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