Seeking no oracles
on mountain tops,
the vagrant shambles
through rough-tumble
of the revelers.
Dodger of gutters, he
plies an art absurd
and desolate. His
quirky lamentation
divides me from myself,
chills the mind to
brittle-heel me by.
Yet dickering with
conscience, trapped
in his shifty eyes, I
hold out my last coin,
snatched with a grimace
of an augur. Sends
me reeling from the
black hole of a year.
From: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/181/2#!/20605964
Date: 2002
By: Lucien Stryk (1924-2013)
From Troubles of The World 