He sleeps in doorways
Doesn't want to go to a shelter
Not even when prodded with the
Heaviness of the cop's nightstick
He turns curls up in a fetal position
Memories of Vietnam whirl
Inside his head like helicopter blades
The alcohol the drugs the failed years
Gather like locusts inside the
Cranial guitar of his mind
Warrior of Pharaoh origins
Pale spokesman of lost tribes
Masked as homeless transient
And all its imperfections
Ravished by the streets kissed by angels
Left tired withered like an unattended
Kansas grain field
Outside A Boarded Down Jazz Club
An old man stands in the doorway
Of an abandoned building
Shoulders stooped
Jesus beard
Ragged clothes
Hands outstretched
Begging for his supper
A tote of wine
His prayers unanswered
Spittle on his chin
Holes in his shoes
Walt Whitman's forgotten
Child
Jazz Angel
She sits alone in her small hotel
room
Above the 222 Club
8 months pregnant forced to give head
For soup and bread
No heat one washcloth
One yellow stained washbasin
Hope bled dry
Immigrant without visa or status
An illegal caught in a legal trap
Feels the baby stir move inside her
Lead belly blues plays in downstairs bar
She heads for the door
Hears the night manager whisper "whore"
Suspended in silence and grief
Floating face down in the bowels
Of the American dream
