On His Own Path

‘I’m a poet,’ he announced, one morning at the bus station.
The words filtered through benches, became a distant echo
but, like the newspaper dancing against the Perspex,
no one gave him a transient glance or cursory nod.

‘I’m a poet,’ he told himself every afternoon in the shop window.
A positive affirmation, for confirmation
in case life may have altered course over night.

He grew a beard, stopped combing his hair,
wandered the streets in search of meaningful things
to write on the back of cigarette packets or polystyrene cartons.

He listened for colour in language –
nothing inspiring about urban-speak or the chatter of clerks
as they scurried like ants from platform to office.
Rappers without rhythm,
loose change singing a mantra in their pockets.

‘I’m a poet!’ he shouted, to the girls glowing under the streetlight,
while the city fell from pubs and clubs and toppled into tube
stations,
the spoils of their day spilling into gutter as he delved.

‘I’m a poet,’ he sighed. ‘I should live in the country,
have affinity with nature, experience the rawness of life.’
Then shook his fist and cursed the city
for its lack of trees and birds and limitless sky.

‘I’ll be leaving now,’ he whispered to the pavement,
folded his cardboard bed and followed his own path to
inspiration.