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