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Whey-skinned, shrunken-faced, with ill-shaved cheeks,
Clothes like drabs, unchanged for weeks,
Twisted-backed by age, his eyes to ground,
Glum, the old man makes his round,
House to shop and then a rubbish bin,
Taking out and putting in,
Seeking papers which he hoards at home,
Window-piled like browning loam.
Bald on top though scarved with cobweb hair,
Temple-strung like dirty air,
Limping, sometimes groaning to himself,
Each step like a sort of stealth,
Too-short trousers flap about his shins,
And sockless ankles flash like grins...;
Busy men and mothers with their young
Shun him like a stench that’s sprung
Suddenly beneath their careful feet
From a carcass in the street.
Unaware or uncomplaining, he,
Focused on his ministry,
Last week’s papers crammed beneath his arm,
Glares at tots but means no harm.
I, his pupil by a few scant years,
Death’s droll whispers in my ears,
Drifting into that Sargasso way,
Isolate by day and day,
Stung by questings, meaning to confess,
Tropes to shape and words to dress,
Might with purposed pointlessness like him,
Tatters-hung and waste of limb,
Sift the tide-scum for a pearl of price
Though, palm-held, it melt like ice.
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©
April 2015