Walking the Smoky
garbage-strewn-ragged-wild-dog
streets at night
Haunting myself with Morrison Poems

Sometimes I wished I had the nerve
to give up all
my belongings
and join the beggars

(but I knew I couldn't let go of my
first class western mind)

Anyway it was just a middle-class kids
dream of escape

and then there was the man that I saw
convulsing under blankets, by the side
of the road,
flies eating his flesh

I never saw someone so close to the brink of
death, and still hanging on


I think I gave him 70 rupees
just laid it there in the dirt next to his body

Later, when he was sitting up and smoking I could
see that his eyes were all burned away,
just white cloudy pools

I've been back here for years now
and sitting in the dark
in my cozy blankets

I am jealous of his freedom