VIII

Blackberries were my breakfast, three seasons of the year.
I cd fill my hat in fifteen minutes flat.

When I fished for coins playing blues on the street
I cdn't fill my hat, but I filled my needs.

The realm of the homeless is a film noire world. 
Gathered over old formica in all-night diner living rooms,

reckoning rent by the cup, familiar with the faces
of strangers as much as with the tired jukebox tunes.

People changed their names w/ the seasons
like so many B movies on the theatre marquee.

I saw myself being ninety years old, wearing nothing
but a loincloth & a white mane reaching down to my ass

in a tarpaper shack on the edge of town,
where I'd sit on the porch teaching children bad habits.

I had a '65 Chevy, 22 foot step-van, tall enough to stand in
with boots & a hat on.  It was wider than my bed was long.

In the first two weeks the clutch & tranny both died.
I sold my car three times to pay it off.

It came to rest finally, under the Roosevelt bridge.
My van was known as the Rosy Hotel, I became a troll.