Dogtown Blues

Swelter, shelter, smelter, helter-skelter.
I must protest this acid heat.
Stifling me like the extra blanket I don't need.
Sweat my only companion.

I burn, inside and out.

Please explain how I ended up here.
What animal karmic overload caused
me to end up beached like a whale
lost and dry?

Here in this ghetto of failure and
unhappiness. I can feel the pain
of the day I got on the bus coming
here.

The market down the street, drooping
awnings melting in the heat, limp
vegetables dying in the stalls outside,
has a line outside as people line up to
buy their life-line ice bags. A bag of
ice or two to make it through the night.

I slump on the stoop, waiting for whatever.
This stoop is home base. As long as I can
sit here I am safe. Here I and my fellow
inmates wait for the end to come.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner