Amidst the Wastleand

Joel peered, hawk-eyed
and wasted
from the night, navigating
the ocean
of inebriation and whores,

dead tickets & vouchers
from race tracks
bars and banks - busted
financially, not
Spiritually -- littering
the strand with ominous signs
during his only leave,

The dawn spawns seeds
of hope in even the barest site,
visions from the visionless,
music for the tonedef -

Butt-coffee, the nervous twitch
of caffine and withdrawls
can also make one
Very anxious, but equally hopeful
for fruits that are only slightly
different from those
of Governors, Police Cheifs
and Preachers -

The red-eyed wonderer
in city streets and alleys
was once Socrates, Kerouac
and Christ - and now
existing in the form
of a poet, a philosopher -
a substantial one, not actors
nor politicians of the street -

The dark circles beneath the orbs,
framed steadfast by crows feet,
eventually become the ringed horizion
the proper horizon, as though, afloat
solitary upon the salty brine
in the bark of the creative mind -

The constellations are the words,
the stars the letters,
the perceiving mind the pen
mythic heart is GOD
in a versimilitude of moods,
the methodic muse of TRUTH
AND POESY
Amidst the Wasteland . . .