Raised on a diet of bible verses,
beatings and curses -
he grew like a rose from the concrete;
feeding on prose, poems and paintings
on pages
of disheveled dogeared diaries.

His days spent playing ball
in hopeless broken glass
grass-less parks;
filled with litter and rabid dogs
across foul festering fields
on the stench-ridden outskirts,
the wrong side of the tracks,
set him up for a back-footed existence.

Washing ***** dishes;
racking,
stacking and packing piles of plates
for wages paid in copper coins,
unable to foil his life of turmoil.
A plethora of poorly punctuated
pauper poems,
written in faded ink on train tickets,
unfolded matchboxes
and scraps of old paper advertisements -
offered no food for his thoughts
nor crumbs for the rumbles of hunger.
Lines stuffed fat with substance
never fed the mouth
that spoke them into existence.

Pawning his tattered and torn everything
outside railway stations
to ragged homeless roommates
for bartered paper-plate morsels
rescued from floors and trashcans.
With his empty bag and nothing to sell
he returns to his cardboard cell,
the darkest corner of his hunger hazed hell.  

Blinded by starvation fed desperation,
he grabbed an apple
from a fruit and vegetable
market-stationed wheelbarrow
only to end up thrown into jail,
mixed with murderers and rapists
                there's no climbing out
of this felon-shaped hole
as his downhill life;
till death,
remains in
free-fall.