‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the homeless, old man begging for change
On the green line station me and my friends get off at to buy coffee
He turns and looks at us
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the toothless, old man on that cold winter night
As we preemptively pull out our phones and look down at the ground
A defense mechanism
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the hobbling, old man as we pass him by
Without making eye contact or even a sympathetic nod
If only I had cash on me
‘I ain’t tired!’ repeats the mentally ill, old man while we descend
The stairs down onto the pavement and into Chinatown
The snow continues falling
‘I ain’t tired!’ echoes the starving, old man
His voice ringing in my ears long since we’d left ear shot
The only time I had the courage to glance at him
He was a mess of wires and bone and cloth and paint and white hair
Older than the city I had just begun to explore and call home
Permanently on that train station yelling
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’

Rigid, impasto clouds
Stick out of the sky
Like Van Gogh
Put them there himself
Sky peaking between
Buildings and towers
Pushed and pulled
Twisted and ripped apart
Like fabric tearing slowly
Moved by the breeze
Invisible currents slicing
A silent cacophony of air
I reach up and feel
Solid, dried paint crackles
Under my finger tips
I pull my hand away
Digits stained white and blue and gray

Shifting streets and their buildings
Pulsing and moving and shaking
Jagged and prickly corners
Edges of windows glint
Like drops of blood
On the edge of a sword
Walls and sidewalks
Rough like a giant cat's tongue
The skyscrapers carve the landscape
Into a distorted forest
An amalgamation of today
And yesterday and the day before that
I reach forward and feel
I pull back in shock
Fingers pricked and knees scraped

body like a Hoplite,
raised from the dust to lay the land-
sent armed
ashen spear and heart,
trunks of armour clad legs
growing into the clay coloured Earth
rooted.

these lyre-heartstrings taut with longing.
to see
a browbeaten Myrmidon,
in daylight.

watch, as the breath of Zeus escapes
Grecian chests,
concave with muscle
Olympus itself exists within those crevices.

i lay offerings,
ambrosia soaked spoken word
at the under-flesh of your calf
laying beside myself
in hope the whispers bestowed to you from the Fates
on the eve of Troy
mean less with your lips, pressed to wine, against mine.

I've done it
the house is finally quiet
no more sound, no more commotion
I've asked them all to leave, and even forced some out the door
and finally, I've done it
Alone at last
but, like many things, it came at too high of a price
i'm finally alone, but now my very soul is gone too