To sum it all up, taking a piece of word from his version of Psalms;
“Twenty-four doesn’t sound that old,” so said the ugly *** Today I
borrowed a homeless man a cigarette, his words were an ashtray –
burned out like the filter; sounding ashy. You could start a fire with
the knots inside his hair; eyes dimmed to the colour of ash, smoke
curling off the edges of memory. Twenty-four years of breathing in
what he could never let go, still clinging to the cracked seams of his
face.
His hands were black and oily, fingers stiff with factory life — each
line a map of labour leading nowhere but back to rust. No kids, no
wife. He mumbled verses from the Word, a sermon half-lost in static,
holy words turned cryptic; by too many nights without rest. Still, he
was a humble addict.
He struck a matchstick against a box, wrapped in a cloth —the flame
trembling in the wind, his jacket pocket rustling like paper filled with
forgotten names. From living under locks; mostly the locks of others,
he never found the key to his dreams. As the world counted his body,
but not his breath; once shining through the seams - now just empty
dreams.
Steel teeth, a dusty cap, a gambling hand; a whiskey flask half full of
forgetting. He drank like a man who mistook warmth for home; never
regretting. Some nights he slept on steel — bench or bed, I couldn’t
tell. But don’t assume he was sad; some men make peace with their
ghosts —some paint their heaven with the smoke of hell.
They said he’s just another one, a mumbling story in torn clothes,
words scattered like receipts for a lifelong spent. A man treading
the thin line toward his own end. But I still walk that street — the one
where he talks to no one, and everyone avoids his eyes. They say not
to mind the words he mumbles; but that man, the one they cross the
road to miss — __that man is our uncle.__
And I still check up on him.
Oct 30, 2025
Oct 30, 2025 at 6:01 AM UTC
To sum it all up, taking a piece of word from his version of Psalms;
“Twenty-four doesn’t sound that old,” so said the ugly *** Today I
borrowed a homeless man a cigarette, his words were an ashtray –
burned out like the filter; sounding ashy. You could start a fire with
the knots inside his hair; eyes dimmed to the colour of ash, smoke
curling off the edges of memory. Twenty-four years of breathing in
what he could never let go, still clinging to the cracked seams of his
face.
His hands were black and oily, fingers stiff with factory life — each
line a map of labour leading nowhere but back to rust. No kids, no
wife. He mumbled verses from the Word, a sermon half-lost in static,
holy words turned cryptic; by too many nights without rest. Still, he
was a humble addict.
He struck a matchstick against a box, wrapped in a cloth —the flame
trembling in the wind, his jacket pocket rustling like paper filled with
forgotten names. From living under locks; mostly the locks of others,
he never found the key to his dreams. As the world counted his body,
but not his breath; once shining through the seams - now just empty
dreams.
Steel teeth, a dusty cap, a gambling hand; a whiskey flask half full of
forgetting. He drank like a man who mistook warmth for home; never
regretting. Some nights he slept on steel — bench or bed, I couldn’t
tell. But don’t assume he was sad; some men make peace with their
ghosts —some paint their heaven with the smoke of hell.
They said he’s just another one, a mumbling story in torn clothes,
words scattered like receipts for a lifelong spent. A man treading
the thin line toward his own end. But I still walk that street — the one
where he talks to no one, and everyone avoids his eyes. They say not
to mind the words he mumbles; but that man, the one they cross the
road to miss — __that man is our uncle.__
And I still check up on him.
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