Get down,
Run away from the sun,
Get down,
Cry for the rain,
See the world,
Through a beggar’s eyes,
Green velvet,
Grassy field,
His bed,
Wandering through a world,
July,
Hot summer,
Breaking up a fever,
Drunken lay,
Broken bottles,
In the hay,
Leaning for another day.
Where has the new wine gone?
Where are the streets of woven gold?
Here lies,
In an unmarked grave,
That man,
Lost to the days,
History’s blind eye.
Do you not,
Hear that dying voice,
Into that howling wind?
Who dare not see,
The troubled man,
Dying on the streets,
His hand outcast?
Hear,
This displeasure,
Of misery,
To dare not tell,
Who they are?
Preach thy name,
Oh brother,
Oh sister,
Preach thy dying day!
The choir sings,
Oh glory,
To heaven’s grace,
To be,
That forgiving,
In live,
He was a poor man,
Begging on the street,
And in death, he is a sign,
‘Here lies a nameless man, remember him’
We sang his grace, his life,
Of what we knew,
His mother, who was still alive,
Did not know her son was there,
Laying cold on the sidewalk,
No one knew her name,
No one knew, except,
She was still alive.
Her son, oh her son,
Was buried,
In a pauper’s grave,
But we made sure,
His feet were not bare,
Shined shoes from some generous soul,
Socks, his were too worn,
We cried,
OH my friends,
We cried,
Dare not Heaven take him,
He passed away too soon.
Good night brother, sleep forever in peace,
Good night…
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LAST 8 YEARS: Thanks for the reminder WordPress!
Apparently, 8 years ago today, I registered for a WordPress account.
I don’t really remember registering that long ago; feels like it was just yesterday.
April 16th, 2011 – I don’t remember much about it, to be truthfully honest.
A lot of things happened in that 8 years; big changes, for both me and how I see, feel and.or interact in this world.
The biggest was my wifey; my soul mate, passed away on December 19th, 2012.
That was the moment I discovered there was a God and he was a pissed off old man who really loved to fuck with his children.
When my wife died, it turned me from a depressed poet to an extremely depressed alcoholic poet.
Other things happened; loves drifted into my life, then drifted back out, I wasn’t their cup of tea, or they weren’t mine; one came into my life, and she’s still here, I think for my wit, I know it’s not for my face.
I moved back home to Butte, Montana after my wife passed away(I had met her online back in 1996 and moved to Indiana in 1998) after spending 15 years in Southern Indiana, across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky.
In 2015 my mom decided she had enough of this world and passed away.
Then in 2016, my dad, a year and a week after my mom, he too said pfft on this earthly realm and passed away.
The state, because my dad was on Medicaid to support his habit of living in a nursing home for a few years as the V.A. felt he could walk fine with just one leg (lost to diabetes) and didn’t pay, took my folks’ house away after they passed away.
Truthfully honest, they got the short end of the stick as my dad’s bills had amounted up to about $170,000 from 3 years in the nursing home and other health issues.
The state got about $27,000 from the sale of the house, after back taxes, and such.
After losing the parent’s house (my second time in my life losing a house—the first being me and the wifey’s in foreclosure in 2012! 2012 was a very bad year!!) I ended up homeless in 2017.
A few months with friends.
Living for about a month and half under a tree.
A couple of days in a motel room in Butte, Montana spread through out those spring and summer months, drinking Black Velvet, writing a few pieces, documented here on WordPress if you wander down my 8 years of work here.
I moved back to Louisville, Kentucky where I still am, doing better, my lover helping me regroup, rethink.
We’ve been together for over two years as lovers; friends, meeting at a riverboat casino as team members, for over twenty years.
She almost gets me.
Then I change the rules.
She hates it when I change the rules.
God thought I was too happy; getting back on my feet, so he took my best friend in 2018, about two weeks before Christmas.
One of those; he was my brother from another mother and father, over 20 years of friendship.
HOW AND WHY I WRITE: Kids don’t try this at home!
People wonder why most of my poems are mostly about depression; death; dying; etc. etc. etc.
Strangely, as I’ve tried to explain to these people; most of the time, I am beyond happy when I write these pieces.
I guess there’s a person who I’ve named Dylan who sits in my brain; that depressed poet, with a bottle of whiskey, who decides he needs to write or he’ll truly go mad and do something stupid.
It’s the only way I can explain it.
I wrote a piece tonight that is basically a man preparing to kill himself; I wrote the piece, perfectly happy, perfectly sober.
I was watching the movie Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck.
I sat on the couch, the laptop on my lap, the movie playing, and the words came to me.
They definitely are not happy words; if someone who didn’t know me, or didn’t read this piece, read them, without the context of Dylan being an imaginary drunken suicidal poet inside my head, they would call the police and ask for a wellness check on me.
I also write silly pieces; those wits and wisdoms that will be found when I die, people will read them, thinking it’ll explain me, but will fail in that attempt, as mostly those are red herrings; unfruitful clues to the real me.
Truthfully honest, I wear many masks, even while writing. I can be joking; which I mostly do, and be crying the entire time.
I guess from what I’ve discovered, a lot of the funniest people in the world; the greatest comedians, were also the most depressed.
We only discovered this from their untimely deaths.
Depression is a killer; it has come to me and put its arms around my shoulders a few times; the closest I’ve ever come to trying suicide is right after my wife passed away in 2012.
I stood at the kitchen sink in the apartment where me and my wife had lived; the place where she had died.
It was about 2 weeks after she had passed away; the fog of the events still held her grasp on me, I stood there, washing some dishes, and held a steak knife in my hand, I push my hands into the warm water and held the knife to my wrist.
One easy stroke was all it would take, my brain told me.
But then, thoughts of my sister-in-law coming into that apartment, finding my body, days after losing her only sister, it made me stop.
I couldn’t hurt her or my many friends.
I backed away from the edge.
I cannot say that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind ever again.
It has.
But I keep living; for my friends, my family (blood and acquired through friendships — apparently, I have many sisters! None by blood. One brother by blood but a few by the kinship of the spirit!) and for myself.
I’m a delight!
Many more adventures to write about; more poems to share with you, my dear reader.
So anyways, there’s the how and why I write.
I hope you enjoyed the peek inside my madness.
If you want to read some of my other poems I have on another site, I could use the views over there as well!! HINT! HINT! NUDGE! NUDGE! (earn those pennies baby!!) CLICK ON —–> MY OTHER POETRY SITE <—-
My newest poem, an actual happy poem, is called THE PARADE OF HUMANITY!!
My newest poem, the one I wrote tonight, will be posted over there tomorrow sometime, time for beddy bye!!!
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Last night, I had a dream, these characters in this story were in it, the conversations were had, and for some reason, I decided to write this.
For a month and a half last year, I was homeless, living under a tree, had a job but wasn’t enough to find a place.
It was enough to buy some chicken and beer, which wasn’t the best health choice, but as a sleep aide, the beer did well in its job.
I met a lot of characters during that short time, fellow travelers for lack of a better word and I actually started writing a “Diary” of sort, observations and such, as I was laying under that tree, protected somewhat from the elements.
I keep thinking someday, I’ll publish that diary.
But for now, here’s a tale from my dreams…
“Doc” George Winfrey was not a real doctor, by education or even by practice but that’s what his fellow street people, those folks society looked down upon, the cold huddled masses sitting in the alley ways, tucked away from the sight of the “Respectable” folks.
Doc just could fix people when they needed fixing; a broken arm, he could splint up, a broken soul, he could mend.
At one point in his life, Doc had been a “preacher”, a reverend by the name of the lord, his church was on Baxter street, just down the way from where he now claimed was his home, a sheltered box under an overpass.
“He could raise a sinner into the hand of God by just speaking to him!” Sidney, my friend, and fellow traveler through this thing called life, said one day as we sat at a bus stop.
We weren’t waiting for a bus but the shelter protected us against the snow and cold winds blowing, a trick we had learned quickly in our street life.
“I use to listen to him preach, not like those fellows down at the mission, all words, no heart, but he’d tell you, and you’d listen, and want to sing out!”
I smiled.
“I wish I could have seen that! What happened? Why is he, you know, here?” I asked, blowing into my hands, red from the cold.
Sidney sighed, looking down at the ground.
“How do we all end up here?” he finally said “through the hands of fate, we are dealt whatever hand we are dealt and we must live by that hand!”
“But what hand was he dealt?”
He smiled, looking over at me, almost squinting.
“A shitty hand my friend, a very shitty hand!”
As we sat there, Margie approached, holding a bag.
“They be giving out soup and bread and gloves down at the mission! I brought ya two some too, I don’t like to eat alone and I hope the gloves fit! I guessed at your sizes, you’re about the same sizes as my brothers, God rest their souls.”
Margie, a slender woman, not old by chronological order, but by the sun bleached skin from the years out on the street, was one of the people I had become friends with at the start of this life.
She once told me she had been a teacher up north somewhere but something happened, changed inside her mind, and one day, without a memory, she awoke fully naked, standing in front of her 5th grade class she had been teaching at.
“I’d probably had paid more attention in school if my teacher had been naked! And well, looked as good as you!” Sydney joked as she told the story that day, right here at this same bus stop.
We sat there and ate our soup and bread, and hot coffee as well, the warmth cheered us up and we just sat there, like kings and queens of these realms.
“I like warmth!” Margie smiled. “If I ever get back, you know, out of these streets, I will never be cold again! Go south maybe…”
We all nodded.
“You know, I think I might go see my son, this Christmas!” Sydney said, placing the gloves on his hands. “He’s got a place, nice one, in Colorado. Wife and baby, I’ve never met neither, been too…” he stopped talking, looking at his feet, shuffling them, the snow blowing under the shelter.
“You never told me you had family!” I said, patting him on the back. “Person needs family!”
“I haven’t seen my son in years, his mother took him away, back when I was still proper, I guess that’s the term!”
“Before you became the king of 10th street?” Margie smiled.
“Yes, that’s it, king of all this!” He laughed, waving his hands in front of him.
As we talked, Doc approached, his eyes glued at us.
“My family!” he smiled and settled into the shelter. “It is a glorious day!”
We nodded.
It was a glorious day, we didn’t have a roof or a bed, clean sheets, or even a nickel to our names, but we were alive, semi-well, and if asked, we were happy.
And we sat there and the world stopped, just for a moment, to listen to us, truly listen, and held us closely, keeping us safe and warm.
It was good, to be alive, to sit and talk to these people, my friends, my family.
If I had known my future life, the things that would happen, I would have stayed in that moment, forever, talking and laughing.
Doc was killed by a man a few months later, a druggie he was trying to “save” from the madness he, I discovered, was once afflicted with.
“Man finds a want, a desire, could be a woman, or the needle, I wish I had chosen the woman!” he once told me. “I ever tell you about how I ended up here, lost from my church?” he asked one day.
I shook my head.
“I was at the top, I should have been happy, loving church, a good church, and a wife and two kids, a good life, and one day, in a misguided attempt to dig myself out of some moment of depression, I tried to find that way through a needle…”
He stopped for a moment and smiled.
“I guess, it was God’s attempt to inject me into your life, my friend, but he surely could have just made it easier for you to show up instead!” he laughed.
The druggie who killed Doc thought he was a demon coming to take him away to Hell.
Course, a homeless man killing another homeless man doesn’t rank high on the police’s ranks, so nothing was done.
We had a moment, there, in silence, a few tears, a word, and then we went on, like we always did.
Sydney was a lucky bastard; he did make it to his son’s place, up in Colorado.
“Mom told me you were dead…” his son had said, over the phone, when Sydney called him.
“I never doubted her father!”
He’s happy, a gloating grandfather, or Papa, as he likes to call himself.
We write every so often, trying to keep in touch.
Margie was discovered one morning, naked, her wrists slit, in some alley.
Suicide was the official cause of death.
I decided to leave the realm, got a job and an apartment, nothing too fancy, just a place to call home, an address.
I sometimes still hear Doc’s voice, chiming into my thoughts, “Man has to figure his destination out by himself, the road will dictate though the journey…”
Hello!
Tonight shared piece comes from my adventures as a homeless grocery store cashier I did back in the summer of 2017.
I kept a journal during those days; was suppose to be a day to day ramblings from that “low point” in my life; but to be truthful, I didn’t keep up and now find myself trying to remember things.
I drank beer and ate chicken I bought at my grocery store.
I sat and talked to folks who wandered into the park; their dogs excited at a chance for a meal of chicken bones and one stealing some of my beer.
“He’s a lush!” his owner, a man named Robert, said, chuckling.
Robert was a 72 year old, half blind man, using the magic of Mary Jane’s girls to keep the peace inside his head, a veteran of the Vietnam War, and peace activist later on.
We’d talk about everything; from politics to landing a sweet young lady who could smother us with a nice soft pillow.
Neither of us would even struggle we both discovered.
Other homeless travelers; looking for work, then moving on, would enter my camp but never stayed as it was just too “Rustic” (no fire pits! It got cold out by the marsh) and they would move on with a wave.
READ ‘THE HOMELESS GUIDE TO LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN’ BY CLICKING HERE!
I learned a few things out there; somethings I already knew but till you experience them, you won’t know the truth.
Most people out there, on the streets, do not want to be homeless.
A lot of them have jobs; the cashiers, cart runners, wait staff, etc.
They just don’t make enough money to be able to afford a place to live.
Yes, there are resources for the homeless but there are just too many of the homeless at one time to be helped quickly.
It’s a problem faced everywhere.
I ended up on a “Waiting List” for housing assistance.
A two year (at least) long waiting list.
This is suppose to be the land of milk and honey but there’s not enough milk nor honey.
Everyone is just one stumble from finding themselves in that same situation; without a home.
I was lucky enough to have friends who provided me a place to stay, to shower, etc.
And only found myself for a little over a month living under the branches of a huge tree in a park.
I was also lucky enough to have a job that paid enough for me to eat; to spend a few days in a cheap motel; where I’d shower, snuggle on the bed, watch cable TV and listen to the hookers next door moan out the song “Give it to me baby!” in D-flat.
(Also thanks to friends who sent me money also!!! Cheap beer is your sleep aide and friend out there on the street sadly!)
Today I am a lucky man; moving into my own place with my lady love, a new adventure, but I will always keep those life lessons learned that summer; never to take for granted those things I have; to cherish my friendship and to aid my fellow man when it comes time.
Yes, my dear readers, there are the career homeless; those who stay out there; for whatever reason but for the most part, the people out there are just like you; they just stumbled and fell; they had the jobs, the houses.
In a lot of places; the homeless are treated as nothing more than animals; chased away, caged, stomped on, bused away to become other peoples’ problems.
The homeless shelters closed; for different reasons.
Attempts to start another one; up to code, are foiled by NOT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD mentality.
Sadly, the homeless are already in the neighborhoods.
The screams of “Get a job” coming from the mouths of haters; hot coffee thrown into peoples’ faces as they beg or say nothing.
“Trash!” some folks yell, the same folks who call themselves “Good Christians”
The “Trash” at some point in their life before this new chapter were “Productive Citizens” with good jobs, beautiful homes, now reduced to a beaten dog, trying to find their way out of the mire of this homeless life.
Something needs to be done; no one in this country should be homeless or go hungry.
No child should go to bed with an empty stomach.
Everyone should have a bed and a pillow to lay their head; a basic human need you soon discover being a homeless person.
There is no excuse…..
WANDERING WHERE I AM GOING! 