He shivers in the warm summer light

arms wrapped round rocking body

legs crossed against hard red brick pavement

black padded hoodie cowls

His youth pocked face

translucent, masked

in white flecked

wirebrown beard

cardboard sign propped

on gruel grey-blanketed thighs

tells not His whole story

HOMELESS

  HELP

Broken on the loom of expectation

‘Unnatural’ seed

Cast out

Cashed in

By family betrayed

He knows the night creatures -

bloated but unseen by the waking world -

Refuse Fishers

Fuckers of Shadow

Students of Alcohol

In search of purpose

Beating, bludgeoning boots

Bruises tattooed in pale daylight

Invisible to hurrying morning feet

That walk by his pain

without paying

His pleas unheard

despised, ignored, feared

disease in a world wary of epidemic

where wealth and desire are the only cures

A life folded, forgotten by all

but the wind, the rain, the snow

Until one flame-dull and frigid day

Life already numb

Is frozen in one final

winter’s

kiss.