Winter’s Kiss
He shivers in the warm summer light
arms wrapped round rocking body
legs crossed against hard red brick pavement
black padded hoodie cowls
His youth pocked face
translucent, masked
in white flecked
wirebrown beard
cardboard sign propped
on gruel grey-blanketed thighs
tells not His whole story
HOMELESS
HELP
Broken on the loom of expectation
‘Unnatural’ seed
Cast out
Cashed in
By family betrayed
He knows the night creatures -
bloated but unseen by the waking world -
Refuse Fishers
Fuckers of Shadow
Students of Alcohol
In search of purpose
Beating, bludgeoning boots
Bruises tattooed in pale daylight
Invisible to hurrying morning feet
That walk by his pain
without paying
His pleas unheard
despised, ignored, feared
disease in a world wary of epidemic
where wealth and desire are the only cures
A life folded, forgotten by all
but the wind, the rain, the snow
Until one flame-dull and frigid day
Life already numb
Is frozen in one final
winter’s
kiss.
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Writerseye
John Gilbert is a published author, poet and editor. He divides his time between Brighton, where he lives, London, where he works, and Cornwall, where he has family.
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