The Man with the Black Trailing Coat
gus stills
Posts: 366
The man with the black trailing coat
and the pushcart stacked high with
the detritus of passersby, he is
so enamored of his own insight that
he lends it without thought of recompense.
He murmurs to a starling at rest on the
budding shoot of an apple tree, telling it
“She waits not for you but for Time itself,”
and the slender bird jumps to the air,
its wings a pale crescent as it crosses the sun.
A wheel has come loose on his cart and
it wobbles as he wanders the cracked sidewalk,
gnarled roots pushing up from the fringes
of the yards along his path, to which he turns
one baleful, lazy eye and shudders.
He stoops to a blind woman on a wooden bench,
saying “You sit on the scratched lies of ten years
of accumulated heresy, woman, and there you’ll
lie as they scratch out your grave,” and he chuckles
as she stares straight ahead into a fine mist.
His beard is torn with patches of grey
and his own eyes see a Truth that he knows
is elusive to those who move from his gaze,
who find reason to cross the street and
stare suddenly into the windows of closed stores.
He stops and turns about in a shambled circle,
raises his arms to the sky and his murmur
becomes a hoarse shout, yelling “Circes no longer
waits in her crystal shell and He is come upon us,”
and his arms fall to his side with a silent whisk.
A police car turns the corner and cruises slowly
to a stop, and still he does not break stride,
but he looks to the officer who steps out and says
“Under your husk is the tremor of a thousand
angel’s wings and you know it not.”
The officer leans on the open door to his car,
its lights spinning in the mist, and stares
as the man walks on, absolved as he always
is by his honest appraisal, this man who
is the arbiter of all whom he sees and possesses.
and the pushcart stacked high with
the detritus of passersby, he is
so enamored of his own insight that
he lends it without thought of recompense.
He murmurs to a starling at rest on the
budding shoot of an apple tree, telling it
“She waits not for you but for Time itself,”
and the slender bird jumps to the air,
its wings a pale crescent as it crosses the sun.
A wheel has come loose on his cart and
it wobbles as he wanders the cracked sidewalk,
gnarled roots pushing up from the fringes
of the yards along his path, to which he turns
one baleful, lazy eye and shudders.
He stoops to a blind woman on a wooden bench,
saying “You sit on the scratched lies of ten years
of accumulated heresy, woman, and there you’ll
lie as they scratch out your grave,” and he chuckles
as she stares straight ahead into a fine mist.
His beard is torn with patches of grey
and his own eyes see a Truth that he knows
is elusive to those who move from his gaze,
who find reason to cross the street and
stare suddenly into the windows of closed stores.
He stops and turns about in a shambled circle,
raises his arms to the sky and his murmur
becomes a hoarse shout, yelling “Circes no longer
waits in her crystal shell and He is come upon us,”
and his arms fall to his side with a silent whisk.
A police car turns the corner and cruises slowly
to a stop, and still he does not break stride,
but he looks to the officer who steps out and says
“Under your husk is the tremor of a thousand
angel’s wings and you know it not.”
The officer leans on the open door to his car,
its lights spinning in the mist, and stares
as the man walks on, absolved as he always
is by his honest appraisal, this man who
is the arbiter of all whom he sees and possesses.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
~it is shining it is shining~
While my first thought was "Pretentious Bullshit",
honestly I wish I could write like that
When you see me on the street, yell out "FAVO!!!"
I've been to alot of Pearl Jam shows;So fucking what.