Homeless Poet Of Heaven

Homeless Poet Of Heaven
© Surazeus
2018 12 04

Although I borrowed hard words to express
agony that twists my heart, like foul sponge
used to scrub crusty filth from cooking pans,
these feelings that now rip my heart are true.

I tear words from lyrics of songs and poems
to bandage gaping wounds torn through my heart,
now soaked bright red with feelings I conceal
but still readers drink fountain of my tears.

My angry father punched me in the face
because I defied his confining rules
so now I spit teeth of rage in the sink
to hide humiliation of blind fear.

Slouching on the park bench near busy street,
the old woman wearing tattered trench coat
grins toothlessly at the startled young man,
and offers to sell him orange for one dollar.

He gives her ten dollars so she gives him
ten oranges which he takes to the small crowd
of homeless people sitting at the foot
of the statue of some Confederate general.

Sitting beside the old witch on the bench,
he eats the orange while she recites life story,
how her mechanic dad drank too much beer
and broke all her teeth when she was sixteen.

Every day since I spit teeth in his heart
but he never expressed any remorse,
so I left home and walked out to the highway
where I hitchhiked from Boston to Seattle.

Somewhere on the highway in Colorado
I met the man I was supposed to marry
who was hitchhiking Seattle to Miami
so we made love by some river at night.

I left him sleeping like my fallen angel
with broken wings in gleaming light of dawn,
then two truckers gave me a ride out west
where they raped me and left me in Utah.

I ate mushrooms and wandered in the woods,
where I saw ghosts of first Americans
dancing in the bleak moonlight of despair,
so I wept over their bones burned to dust.

While walking streets of Seattle in mist,
dropped off by Christian woman who loved Jesus,
I searched for native America man
so I could help bring his tribe back to life.

I thought that was patronizing and racist
so I wept again for all their lost souls
while begging for money for food to eat
lost on University Avenue.

Then some old man who looked like Santa Claus
gave me blank notebook and ink writing pen
so I wrote poetry about my feelings
and read them at open mic every night.

The poetry professor and his small crowd
of loyal followers liked poems I wrote
so he gave me scholarship to attend
master of fine arts degree in his class.

I read the verse of many new young poets
who explored dynamics of family life
so I copied plot scenes and images
to write my own poems expressing my sorrow.

My poems were published in big magazines
and submitted for annual journal prizes,
and small publishing house in Florida
accepted poems to publish my first book.

But someone noticed images I borrowed
to assemble mask that concealed my feelings
with lines I tore from various other poems,
so they posted my crimes on social media.

Like mobs of angry peasants would attack
sad monster that Frankenstein brought to life,
righteous social justice warriors of Twitter
hunted me down to destroy my career.

So I was kicked out of the graduate program,
I was disqualified from every contest,
my book contract was canceled by the press,
and I was banned from all open mic readings.

My poems were key to enter paradise,
but when I ate fruit from the Tree of Truth
I was expelled by the Angel of Justice,
so I wander mute in the wilderness.

The wise old verse wizard, Tom Eliot
wrote that immature poets imitate,
mature poets steal, bad poets deface
what they take, while good poets make it better.

I took small images from various poems
and from their fragments forged much better poems
to express visions of my aching heart,
but they destroyed me out of jealous fear.

Accept this notebook full of poems I wrote
where I express through elegy of hope
foul sorrow that consumes my rotting heart,
and get it published for the world to read.

After she walks away into the woods
he opens the notebook to read her poems
but stares baffled at pages of weird scribbles,
so he throws it in the trash as she dies.