Portrait of a Vagrant

Laughing man, a symphony of one, whose hearty howls
waltzed boisterously against the hallway panels,
crept under the crack of my door where I was roused
From dreams, jolted awake by the memory of a voice.
The uncle who'd, when I bounced off the walls
as a giddy child, had played airplane with me.
then years ago carved out a home in the riverbed.

When I first looked at him, taking in the vision-
the oversized clothes, the dust and dirt clinging,
revolving in orbit lazily, sleepily around him-
just thinking about it stung my nostrils.
He fumbled clumsily with his Top Hat, Tobacco
always pocketed on the left, never a surprise, yet
the pallor of his face was most shocking to behold.

A face painted white by, branded
by a life of scraps, booze, and defeat.
How garishly he resembled, how crudely
he played the part, so somberly a clown.
A smile spread wide, betraying the eyes,
bloodshot as the morning after digging
too far into the truth of his skeletons,
or spent burying them in the dirt
beneath the bed he slept in every night.

Cheeks a sanguine glow, lights flickering out.
His nose slightly upturned, when smiling
crinkling the corners, the gouges of a lifetime.
grotesque if not for the sincerity - his heart
thrust into every harmless word he muttered.
His life is a transient one - he wanted nothing
but a stiff drink, a borrowed ear, a lit cigarette.
A kind of clown in darkest dreams, more real
than face paint and brilliant colors.
No slant nor sight of the uncle I remembered,
who smiled in rosy photographs and albums.

Now I see a man shackled to newfound addictions.
Without a drink to calm the nerves, he shakes
uncontrollably - his body, in a quiet rage, begs.
His fingers, naked with no cigarette to clasp,
to quench the thirst, he pulls out tobacco, lays down  
zig-zags, rolls a lifeline with soft deliberation
issuing from unsteady fingertips, nails stained.
Burned by the nights spent falling asleep,
smoking, suckling a pure and bitter love, dreaming
of nothing but the bottle of Steel Reserved
rolling away from the other hand.

I remove his filthy cap, which sits so smartly-
tilted just enough to reveal the boy, all too clever
ruffian who had, years ago, burnt a library down.
Every book and every shelf, because he hadn't found
the one story, the solitary fairy tale
to soothe the little monster, the genius hiding
inside – the man who became the vagrant,
The clown who wasn't funny at all.