It’s black and

            white outside

A colorless slate

of quiet

Wingless creatures

            thud the ground

The air is thick

            with melancholy

A dank woe to vagrants

Like me

Soft breeze shifted a form

Out came another umbra

It seeped through sheer sacs

Trampled to bits

                       by gravity

A leaf funneled from

    above

The tree of uncertainty

It is ready to take flight

For it will leave an imprint

To stay longer on earth

Walked on, pressed flat

An arrow in the map of life

            Critter’s antennae shaking

            Its wide eyes see through steel

            A step onto a live red hollow

            Of sharp teeth and tongue

Envisage what’s missed

From the bairn of yore

She wolf bayed at the half-moon

Buzzing ants moved a roach’s corpse

A requiem of mass cadence

Like a duet of chainsaws

Hummingbird’s flutter deafening

Blood trickling down echoed loudly

Her muffled screams unheard

Cold asphalt pavement is bed

The steel bars feel hot to touch

Chrome spikes hurt from the paddle

These cuffs abraded against the ulna

Hot, humid weather prickle the back

The rat’s breath of rotting flesh

Burnt embers of paper and wood

Singe uncluttered nose hairs

He hasn’t showered for a month

Ample warning to those relieving

Stay away from corners full of

Effluvia, urine and dried scat

An open garbage bin reeked of

Days old food… A buffet, sort of

I know fresh from decaying

Poisoned to vegan

Shelter food comes with rules

It only applies when desperate

Coins trickle below

Car exhausts rancid gas

Soft and sticky hot dog bun

Stubby condense meat all snarfed

Sitting on a corner to pass time

Energized by human frailty

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