Love Hobo

Blooming cherry trees adorn the river
A holly bush houses interesting guests
Outside, a warm breeze shakes clouds of dust
Into a swirl

Balloons of plastic bags float above
A celebration of city refuse.
Not-so-still life in the trailer park
Beneath the bridge.

Strawberries discovered outside the shanty house

Are softly whisked away by a delicate hand. 
They disappear behind cardboard.

The city alive with blaring music from cars
Coming from the lower deck of the bridge.
Summer, when the city is most filled with hope and energy

But the smell of decay and rot is the strongest.
Here by the river, 
Ice cream offerings bring a kind of peace.
The holly bush lady smiles 
A Buddha smile.

Coolness arrives in reds and oranges 
Whose reflection along the nearly still water
Are like Van Gogh and Manet
Wavy waterlike trees, or treelike water,
Either way, the view is priceless
And the sweet lady sings,

“I left to follow love 
and this is where I'll stay.”

The lady of the holly bush rejoices at her fate.

Now the city has turned grey
As if life has passed it by.
The dirty river iced
The trees a white delight.
The lady sits in residence inside her holly hut.
She has herself some company
And they're huddled under coats.
An impossibly large blanket is covering them both.
They sit with foreheads touching
Looking comfy as can be,
and the lady smiles aside and says to gawking me,
"I am a love hobo, darling."
And with that she nestles her head
into her bearded love.
My lonely heart and I walk back
Smiling, a thing with wings.

Bandaid 2

my life's a mummy
maybe yours is too
but my mummy beats your mummy
it's bigger and scarier
most of the bandages are falling off
some are so old they're black
you'd never know they were ever white
many of the bandages are oozing blood
a couple are freely bleeding through like waterfalls of cranberry juice
if cranberry juice fell from a waterfall
(this thought comforts me at least a little)
the free bleeding bandages are the worse
then there are the tiny ones that were supposed to only stay a short while
they were covering teeny scratches that started to deepen
and now they are wells of tissue deep to the bone
covered by tiny little baby bandaids
(this would be laughable if the wounds weren't festering)
my mummy sings though
it sings to forget that it lives
it lives, my mummy (a kind of life)
bandages are all that keep it going
do not look upon it in daylight
your eyes will need bandaging too
and why should you suffer my fate? 

Surrender

Today I surrender.
To what has been calling to me since yesterday.
Gravity too heavy on my shoulders.
Knees too weak. Feet of gelatin.
Head like a boulder.
I surrender, floor.
You have me, all of me.
I belong to you and the dust mites and the creepy crawly things,
To the grain of wood that will soon be embedded in my skin.
I belong to you and your cold cold embrace.
May you not lose the strength to hold me up
As my salty corrosive tears drench your planks.
Soggy like an old ship's deck.
If you fail, we fall together.
You and I, dear floor.
Right down to the basement.
There we can surrender to the cement.
It will take considerably more tears to soften it.
I believe we can lie there peacefully as long as we like.