Rubber soles squeak without pretense on air
Fills the floor and the dwellers' ears
With the simple note,
Deafens them all with empty afterechoes.

Not a single meanderer would care if he
Pulled out a gun.
Instead he pulls out a knife
(a paring knife to be exact)

And selects a chair near the door.
Begins to shear the hour.
The knifeblade gleams behind his eyes,
Skewering seconds,

And he continues not to exist,
Murdering minutes.
Someone physically there remarks a draft
So he rises to shut the door,

But reconsiders and retreats
Back to his homestead seat.
Crossed arms and crossed legs.
However evilly uncomfortable,

The figure must be statuesque like the air must be.
Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine. And then sixty arrives
And he rises like a seagull in an operating room
In a grand gesture. He smiles to no one and

Retreats back to his burrow or wherever he lives.

But no one considers old, mad Mister Gray
Though he comes and sits queerly there day after day.