Coffee and Tragedy

He looks up at his fingers,
The pretending sky hides in the back…
Sweet wine soaked in ginger,
Asleep was his conscience in a knitted sack*…

The pale winds of a moaning winter,
Imprints of his spine on a frozen seashore…
The wind to enact as the ocean’s singer,
A sky painted on a glass door…

A Cloud wept for a star's named a sinner*,
The butterfly sleeps in a curl on his chin…
Her wings sway in a lucid shiver,
The sand lies drunk to a morning gin.…

Traffic wakes him of his sleep,
The dream is gone and on the road was he...
He had no home and so he'd weep,
On that day when the world was free...

Gone was a fish in a stolen car*,
A cat moans hungry for its meal…
Alas died a fly in a porcelain jar,
A thorn awaits its slaughter in a kneel…

The street still torn and withered,
Asleep are the children in woolen capes*…
He writes his sorrow with a sleeping feather,
The streetlight eats a bowl of grapes*..

The horn sings as a bus passed,
Walking past were people with plastic masks*...
A florist frowns as his fields were grassed*,
His mug filled with coffee blessed from a flask...

She looks down at his anxious smile,
As the smell of caffeine fills the air...
He'd wish for her to stay a while,
Yet the traffic was too loud for her to bear...

He watched as she sped in a rhyme,
Least did she realize that she spilled a dime...
His will to help would be a poor man's crime,
Yet he fetched it to save life from a lie..

The evening fleet flew away,
An owl sang the night a song in vein...
The candle cheered as a firefly played,
The dime still pending in a jar astray...

He slept that night and yet had no dreams,
He hoped to see her the next morning indeed...
The children slept eating their ice cream,
A tree sprouts out of a planted seed....

The Traffic woke him up as it did always,
People still wore masks to start the day...
A boy waits for candy as his mother pays,
The traffic smiles in silence as its victims fray*...

He waited for her to come that day,
The dime still lying in a box of clay..
A band went marching all the way,
The blisters cramped up on his dampened face..

The day went by and the clock struck noon,
He still waited hoping to see her soon...
His mug filled with coffee and a brittle spoon,
A loaf of bread is this man's gifted boon...

A newspaper flew past his feet,
He saw her picture and the band skipped a beat..
On that day his heart sowed no wheat*,
The pain was all that heart could eat..

Her death proclaimed on printed paper,
The dime still shined like wine in water..
Walked past was a merchant and a draper,
He drew no portraits as he was no painter..

He walked past the traffic as the winter wept,
His knees shivered as the cold winds past them swept...
He dug the pocket where that dime was kept,
He reached her grave as the saddened evening crept...

He knelt and wept for a minute not more,
As his eyes dampened as the rain began to pour...
On that grave was a name that was sworn,
He untied the scarf on that day he wore...

The mother who had then abandoned,
He was her son till that day he was orphaned....
A life he lived like a fruit that never ripened,
On that day he felt that time was destined...

What's this world without its burdens,
A child is born to become a stray abandoned...
We remorse and our hearts softens,
Alas ends this tragedy that could happen...

© 2013 The Winter Poet

Author's Note

Key:

*In a knitted sack - The mind

*A Cloud weep for as a star's named a sinner - The sun is depicted as a sinner as rises behind clouds in a winter dawn.

*Gone was a fish in a stolen car - greedy rich people traveling in cars.

*Asleep are the children in woolen capes - children driven to poverty sleeping with woolen blankets.

*The streetlight eats a bowl of grapes - The dim street lights during the day as its cloudy. The light bulbs are depicted as grapes for the way they look.

*People with plastic masks - people wearing smiles while they walk past each other. smiles are depicted as plastic masks.

*A florist frowns as his fields were grassed - A florist (A man who sells flowers) is upset the flowers are dead.. When flowers die they droop down like grass and hence the personification.

*The traffic smiles in silence as its victims fray - The traffic is heavy and the people who are stuck in it are not very happy about it.

*On that day his heart sowed no wheat - He was not happy that day.