Cold White Snow

Unrelenting snow like flakes of fallout.
A dash, sprinkle, salting, white dust accumulates, till
more and more, it’s too much.
Heaps and mounds –
a deluge made frigid, frost scraped free
by sharp nail-biting winds, descending
unending.

Though, through windows like these,
an envelope glazing my gingerbread-sweet and
cozy home-sweet-home where I sleep in this
suite wrapped in fabrics and sheets, I can
wait out Death’s breath in the hug of my heat, but
when I take to the streets (for a four dollar fee),
I stumble into and over socks that bare feet,
rash rugged skin burned dry by the chill,
fried by the sun, left lone for the kill.

Still, in places like these where bodies and sin
guard shadows, and men hide in dens between bins,
where needles and spoons, like hustlers and goons,
a whore on the beat selling something, to eat;
like graffiti and dice, racks for the bikes, a loud wackadoo
spitting psalms at a pew seating nothing but
crumbs, jagged cigarette butts,
even pigeons are scattered ‘cause his barks bite and blather;
yes, in places like these it’s expected to see
ugly sights such as these.

When men don’t achieve (earn a revenue stream),
the means to your ends, meet
your primary needs,
they’re blameworthy fiends
not worth th’esteam; that’s
the capital dream we’re all led to believe.

Can you put in the time between nine and half-dime,
grind your way through to pay
rent that’s due? Don’t delay.

If you’re falling behind, a man not in line
with the cruel beat of Time, just the
beat of your drum,
marching ho-di-ho-hum, “this life’s not for me,
I wish to be free, to make use of my prime
to make art or to rhyme, be sublimed by Divine,
to make love, live in peace, to bask in the trees,”
instead folded and creased,
by a system of beasts bending you
to your knees,
until down on all fours,
you crawl to do chores that you never dreamed for —
day in and day out,
like a dripping drab spout,
your life drips away,
drips away
by the drop,
blood dribbles and clots,
it’s a drab
dripping
drop
blood
drips
dead, till it —
drops.