His parent's didn't name him dirt
but nobody knew him by nothing else
cigarette smoke stained catcher in rye
silhouette memory of days gone by
ever young yet somehow old
made modest demands of life I'm told
black coffee breath and another spring's elation
from work to mud room salutation
conversation baked with love
country comfort that big city's unworthy of
worn leather smile soft yet bold
soul restored wood stove new yet old
they called him dirt but his heart was gold

In a sepulcher of solitude
In a palace made of pain
Sunshine finds itself hidden under robes of rain
Where happiness feels like rebellion
Joy a fetter to bemoan
Descending caverns of despair to depths of anguish yet unknown
Idols of anxiety to which I give an offering of fear
Peace laughs at my weeping while love and satisfaction jeer
In a sarcophagus of sadness
A casket constructed of my guilt
My temple of refuge made of stone
Is ground into sardonic silt

You were One before one
One with One in whom all perfection makes its dwelling
Look down see  weeping in desert plains
Gaze out behold generations of meaningless toil
Perceive within discern hearts like tabernacles filled with thieves
And so depart from place of peace and house of holy
Be found amongst those who wait for the sun
Yet hide in cavernous pits at his rising
Too bright too good too much life for this world
And so we plotted Your death
And though you knew the crown of pain and robe of shame
That we would bestow
Your hand of grace remains outstretched and yearned for us to grasp
And shepherd dies for wayward sheep
And lots for garments cast
Of He whos sandals we are unworthy to untie
Yet while we lay under fig trees and doubt
You knew and made ready Your body
As the avenue of righteousness
For wretched sinners to ascend to glory

In positions I have never seen
Sleep the sleep of unseen breeds
The thieves the drunkards the possessed
Awakened only by mind mischief or the whisper of a cigarette
To return to what I cannot tell
Perhaps to dream of distant heavens
Or be horrified by little hells

Petals fell and floated in the periphery of his awareness
Punctuated only by the suns patterned sabbatical from the adulation of the city streets and it's blissful nomads.
Gradually it would return in season
An undercurrent of mechanical drone resurrected the daydreamer from his quiescent musings
From his sidewalk monastery he observed the passing urban crawl like one who keeps vigil over the dead
With the stoicism of a fisherman the lolling stream carried the bustle beyond even his cast net of sardonic speculation  
His line of consciousness being temporarily tugged by a branch's ballet in the sunlight, hieroglyphics hidden in a line of brick, or the sparrows who sang deep but happy secrets
Theirs were acts of beauty hidden only by the world's unwillingness to see them
He was content like this
To be irretrievably lost within the labyrinth of his own thoughts
He felt he was a hermit
The keeper of a long forgotten secret
A mime who's silent art was solitude
It was almost comical wasn't it?
The figure a cold stone gargoyle atop his palisade
Scowling at the street below
At flower petal Charybdis and screeching Scylla
His odyssey internal and unknown to passers-by
Save for what could be conveyed by the cigarettes' soliloquy
The clown allowed himself to be swept away by philosophical inquisition and poetic sophistry
What persisted was the wish that it was quieter
That for an afternoon he could be spared the automobiles
He took another drag and tried to find solace
One of the metal demiurges parked portside of his wrought iron Quebec, and he noted the petals caught in the grooves of the wheel
Some held on amidst the ambulation
Others fell the fall of mortally wounded heroes and where caressed by the whispering air
He speculated that perhaps truth and love and beauty could be like these
They were supple beings of nature, or monoliths who inspired awe with their mystery
The modern world would keep them like relics of a former time
It would permit them to exist so long as they did not impede progress
They were relegated to the status of a ****** or an indentured servant
Even their necessary and incumbent pulchritude seemed sapped from them
Like a diadem above a trash heap
A gold ring in a pigs snout
They could for a brief moment decorate the vehicles, the sidewalks, dryad like in his own mop of hair
They may even be carried along by them
Until duty to the god of utility would shirk them off
They could not be allowed to stop the hymn to immolation which emanated from the streets
Lest they give respite to the crusade of endless noise
These foreign gods denied their creation the temptation to joy and inward reflection
The punishment for this was metropolitan purgatory
The two drachmae owed the ferryman were harmony and patience
So it goes
What goodness could come from all this hum drum
What great acts of love, beauty, or courage could brunch inspire in these terrestrial wanderers
It was hard to imagine Gilgamesh as a bartender, even harder to posit Jesus as a CEO
It was time to go
His own impending appointment resuscitated him from his afternoon of little death
He left the cafe and walked blissfully fettered unto new distractions

a waking sun
a blissful wind
do winter's cold hand rescind

playful robin's song
trickling chatter the forest brings
the season's hymn all join to sing

a wild flower
the sound of streams
the gaze of lovers lost in dreams

sweet shower of spring
and humid heat
the kiss of earth beneath bare feet

A plastic bag of pills and things
I placed upon the file box
Replacing papers I had handed to the cops
Their bright lights cut when they pulled up
To stop a suicide or what
I remember what you took
Four cents, some tissue, your smokes, and hat
Then you were whisked away like ash
Now what before was once a man
All but a bag has left
I sat and wrote and on heart choked
For all of satan's theft