the mad man by your car window

He sits by the wayside

The tide has washed

Away his mind

Be kind and don’t ask

What is it that he wants…

If he could just step back in time

The pantomime that plays inside his head

Is not his.

Strange dull ache is all that he feels

Because all that remain

With him are flash-cuts from

An Oliver Stone film

Which, has nothing to do

With what he felt, saw, touched or sensed

Or the life he once had,

Or did he have a life at all,

He doesn’t know.

 

He cringes in the dark

Like a rat that knows his end is near

But he wished he only knew

Who he was, what he was

And put aside his fear

Of dying a nameless death

On the side-walk

And get collected by the cops

With a toe-tag that only gives a count

Like the endless white screams

The mindless dreams

That he hears every night, every time

The sun begins to fade.

His little tattered blanket

Keeps him warm, dry,

And sometimes acts as a shield

From the prying world

When he begins to eat his only meal

Of half-eaten fruit thrown at the dogs

Which he grabbed for hunger’s sake.

He wishes someone would throw

His memory back to him

So that he could understand

The reason behind his pain.

 

Someone once said that

He carried a picture of a girl

Faded, now dirty

Like the old t-shirt which he wears

says Levi’s 501.

There was a time when he stared

At passing cars

Trying to match the picture to a face.

Till all that remained

Was a blur of wheels

Burnt into the depths of his mind

Where now,

The wheels have long stopped turning,

And it’s just a roar that remains...