an old poem, of course an odepoem

I spent today appreciating Cleveland, during the day and night, alone and with a friend, and remembered about this poem in my pocket "memo book" that I started once, when I was in a similar state of mind, and will finish now (as if anything is ever finished).


Caution. There is no danger,
No cars on the broken asphalt of the main street.
Only rocks, pieces of the cracked sidewalk,
kicked by a lone pair of scuffed and scuffling boots,
weaving in between the tallest buildings.
Hot Corned Beef blinks against the fading sunlight.

Throw change in an outstretched styrofoam cup, into a tin can.
Once haught to the last second,
The first to scoff, the second to walk by,
Now you have sympathy for a guy who just needs a nickle
to buy a cigarette
to warm his frozen bones.

Caution, this is not a walkway
Built of blood, sweat, and steel.
This is old stone, empty street caution.
Cleveland, at eight o'clock pm.