life deep in mud

a schizoid poem

Photo by the author.

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” Albert Camus

he lives in
a clunky van
parked illegally,
no tags,
a canine sidekick
fed on pastry crumbs,
barely kept alive.
his owner,
a caffeinated pariah.

clothes from Goodwill,
bifocals taped together,
PF Flyers without socks,
misery without company,
holes in his pride,
an anarchist

hard at work
in his private corner,
a coffeehouse
with free internet,
cheap coffee,
spoons of sugar,
loads of cream —
his tiger blood

sips his mud
between agitated taps,
dots and dashes
on a sputtering laptop.
if he lived in the Middle Ages,
he’d be thrown
to the lions.