At juncture of Syringe St. & Bloodstain Blvd where body bags sleep
where shitpiles grow arms near dusk
Where encampments sprout up as the sodium lamp suns
begin their ascent from bloated horizon
Storefronts all steely and gated,
braced against the savage spawn
who eke out of the folded shadows.
their skin pocked & welted:
with deathlock Medusa dreds
jutting out pell mell from knit caps askew
as the saturated asphalt carpet
& gum-riddled sidewalks
grow tents and pushcarts
instead of trees.
long after the sun ducks below the sky-scrappers
and the skyline yields
a veil of polluted murderous miasma
and the sun looks beautiful in it anyways,
as even the dying and blind
can garner hope
out of the horror.
the cuffed arms of the night
reach for the city’s remnants:
for loose change, for crumpled funk stained bills,
for unattended packages & briefcases,
for bottles half empty
and appetites half sated
precarious & forlorn on bus bench mattresses,
shit stained & fetal positioned
in stairwells or supine under caged cafe tables
where by the money -grubbing -workaday -unwelcome
crumpled- lottery- ticket
Gotta -Get -Up-
& -Fucking- Do -This -Again dawn
they clamor for take-out containers
full of maggot noodles & moldchew
slaking an eternal thirst
from leftover coffee cups with their gelatinous slop
scrounging for lip sticky cigarette butts,
sucking oblivion from the corners of Ziploc bags
and pipe scraps
grasping and begging in supplication for
some exit and egress
from The Now.
all day this will continue; hefting bags & pushing carts
flagging down the perpetually distracted
the terminally harried and multi-tasked
for a dollar, for change, for attention
until the sun sinks or some murderous rain falls
they’ll go shuffling into crevasses
scurry under gunshot awnings & rat trapped alley spaces
–situating themselves in all unwelcome corners,
alongside statues and clustered near all manner
of store-front outhouses
covered in bags and hauling suitcases with lazy wheels
dragging trunks full of humanity
all the tragic human reminders of their undoing:
the bastard bric -a -brac & sacks
of what once was but will never be
taken down from the shelf of humanity
and slapped carefully across the pockmarked face
held up to the fires and told repeatedly
that the mirror does not lie
that the years do not return what’s been taken
and lip service and petition signing
won’t cure a cancer
that doesn’t operate on the cellular level
nor will “POSTING” about it
nor will making the minions digitally aware
of what they’re not looking at
they’re all just staring at the mirror
clamoring for attention
trolling for a taste
self promoting for a piece of ass
for salvation via breeding & filial delusions
image -managing ghosts
asborbed in self absorption
and breeding a new generation
unto the monolithic void
that doesn’t give a fuck about
any of it except the Bottom Line.
while at 4th and Wall that pokelogan of human debris
a morass of shadowed lumps strewn streetside
line the sidewalks & bombed walls
and maybe if you dig deep
maybe if you ask the right questions,
maybe there’s a journal, a 50 page suicide note
with all the empty reasons
spelled out about why it’s not a good idea
to ask too many questions;
about asking loud enough
maybe all the gruffly bearded hipstogrammers
will make art from the lump sum of humanity
maybe the irony of the undoing is actually the death knell
the curse, the narcissistic cyanide thing
creeping through every Wi-Fi portal of importance
& insta-shammed pixelated surveillance photo
of that Shadow Person you’re using to get digital attention
maybe every reference to “Some homeless guy”
metastasizes as a venom of karma
maybe the (f)artsy shadowy hipster-hero
and his stenciled sensationalism
is part of the problem and not the solution,
maybe he’s only helping himself
maybe we are all just casualties of each other
moving closer to what we loathe
while insisting the distance
between us and what we don’t want to see
it’s all apparent that a wiser killer once observed
“We are not what was intended.”
Difficult To Cure 
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