Old Father folds himself
into a corner of the doorway.
His cardboard bed is new,
has not yet begun to carry
the soak of his sweat
or the brine of his old *****.
It is a beauty - he guards
the box with a ferocity
only seen from those
who own nothing but what
they can carry.

Old Father sits like a monk,
quiet and contemplative.
His gimme-cap is a dirt ground halo.
The blanket of his beard
gives a sense of warmth against
nights too feral and bitter
for a man of sixty-eight years.
His breath sketches pictures
onto the air, and, like fog,
they drift away.

Sleep well Old Father,
on your cardboard bed, on the cement
of that doorway where dreams
are dusty shadows that become
ice-rimed memories.

I always believed scars were so beautiful,
until I became one.
A walking, breathing, talking scar - an unchanging reminder of what was and what shall never be again.

I became the scar reminiscent of our love- or rather my love because you were the definition of unrequited
and I used to like that about you - your unwaveringly selfish nature, I used to accredit it to your self belief but then I realised you got that from stripping away mine.
Bit by bit you became who you were by chipping away at pieces of my soul.
Catching the dust of all my dreams and beliefs in your hands and then sifting through it to get what you needed.

Some days you needed a lover.
You needed the heat of my hands raw against the planes of your back- which I had studied in such a neurotically engrossed manner-that surprised even you.
Other days you needed a slave, bent upon raw knees to serve your every whim
and not in a ****** sense because you made it clear that I was repulsive to you most of the time.
No,
you needed someone to serve you and worship at the temple that was your being. You needed a women to be enslaved to your love. You needed to be served and ushered and elevated with no emotional connection. You needed an unchanging commitment that only served you.  

You see, I was forever trying to be what you needed and in that attempt-that feigned attempt at what I used to believe was love, I lost myself. Wading through parts of you that you didn't even care to understand I lost myself.
Raw on my knees.
Wading barefoot through your soul.
Between the sheets- crawling towards you milimeter by milimeter only for you to move further each time.
Tracing the planes of your burning back.
That's when I lost myself,and became a scar. Evidence of all the times you hurt me in a marvelously unflinching and unforgiving way...

All of which I realised when I was destitute.
You see you used to be my home but then the season of our love expired and you threw me out and as I walked the streets of my new life, navigating what it meant to exist without you, I had an earth shatteringly glorious ephiphany - that loving you and being destitute were the same thing.

So here I am. A scar that walks and talks and breathes and the great thing about this scar is that I'm evidence of a healed wound. I am no longer raw from loving you and I am no longer lost. I'm a *** who smiles with no teeth.

I found a missing angel today
he asked me for a ***

& then walked away
in rain and snow he has

nowhere to go
& he sleeps beneath

the endless stars
each night his lullaby

is the sound of passing
cars & the voices going by

he likes the girls
he likes the noise

he hides his wings
beneath his shirt

he sings & smiles
amidst the dirt

he dines
on the night air

& hope
my missing angel

of the North

Seeking shelter under the moon,
                                       (pale, grave, unjust)
It seems unfair that we
                                       (the children)
Should suffer by the faults
                                       (too many to mention)
Of those responsible men and women,
                                       (elected or otherwise)
Quick to judge, lax in self-reflection,
                                       (do they care?)
But, whatever the verdict be,
                                       (pale, grave, unjust)
Here we are, alone, starving for remedy,
                                       (sorry, no prescription coverage)
For solace to our weeping wounds.
                                        (physical or otherwise)
Relief of the kindest human nature,
                                        (a helping hand?)
We earnestly need and need and need…
                                        (get a job, slacker!)
The voice of the Salvation Army speaker
                                        (what’s the verdict today?)
Echoes the length of the shelter hall,
                                        (a roof is a roof)
“No beds left, try again tomorrow,”
                                        (bad luck or a curse?)
Over the clamor of hopeful guests,
                                        (which was louder, his voice or the instant
                                        shattering of my hard-pressed heart?)
And he turns, and he goes, and I am out
                                        (the door)
Under the sheen of the moon, again.
                                        (pale, grave, unjust)
One passer by gawks with a phony concern,
                                        (should I ask with extended hand?)
But hastens his pace in planned evasion,
                                        (why bother?)
As if I’m a disease.
                                        (cough, cough…)
The moon looks down with a frown,
                                        (yes, he too is sad)
At his pathetic subject, meager and small;
                                        (where else to turn?)
He is the caretaker of us all, under his glow,
                                        (pale, grave, unjust)
But, he too, will leave us at dawn.
                                        (at the curb, at the end of the line)

Go walk the streets of dust city remains
where fragments of your rubble houses linger.
Feel the bleach injected in your veins
as you press the jutting steal against your fingers.

A glittering tornado tears aged bricks away
and new pristine white walls strike you down blind.
Where wooden skeletons of homes gave way,
now empty windows flash down the street side.

When your lungs are poisoned by the disinfectant breeze
and you kneel down to cough on grimy cracked concrete,
when the toxins take you and hands start to seize
lay your worn head down and feel your city’s fading heartbeat.

What kind of people spit on the condemned
and cover up the suffering with phony plastic gems?

Christmas is the time for heartbreaking Trócaire ads,
The time when decorations are put up by Dads.
Children are told stories of old.
Broken souls sit in the cold.
Big families arrange for big Christmas meals.
Dust cover young, chapped heels.
Santa and his reindeer fly across the sky.
When yet another hot season slowly passes by.

Christmas is a time when we all exchange gifts.
As just another angel lifts.
Choral chants assemble at front doors with sheets.
While the homeless continue to wander the streets.
The incandescence of lights fill our black,
When the darkest world still remains behind our back.
We receive the joys and the magic.
They only feel the tears and damage.

We have two worlds:
The First and the Third.

We live in the one with a Christmas..
But they live in the world that is still unheard.