Hot evening in my pet rotting parkette:
I notate as chubby bugs buzz through foliage
above an impromptu bohemian jamboree
like a dystopian Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Facial steel and sitars, spliffs and beers abound;
and everyone beams slackly,
in happy decay.
Into this rambunctiously peaceful postcard
saunters the little god himself, Ol’ Hook-Smile,
the black-collar worker who haunts the church nearby.
He pretends to read his gilt-edged Book of Whatever
but really just mumbles that marmalade from memory
while his crafty little bat eyes only touch upon the page
as a base for long, fluttering sideways leaps
among the merry players. Upon his plum lips
prances an amused, tolerant, absolving smile,
a simper that says, O Lost Ones, gaze upon my beatitude,
I am outside although within the world of appearances,
for the way is known,
and I do amble it.
He smiles and smiles
and smiles for them,
and saunters his lonely way,
ignored.