A Beggar

Disembarking

the Ha'penny Bridge

sifting beneath

flippering feet.

Erratic heart

ether-pumping.

Grinding mouth

expelling air and Earth.

Slips to the quay

path and damns

pressed pedestrian throngs

signal attending.

From that sucking slop,

those gaseous flares

he rises amphibious

triumphant

in a bliss of unseeing 

these clumped passages

for companions

released in Elysian distances.

Gibbering sorcerer.

Igneous toad

with Elmo’s eyes

and Nippur’s lung

Breathing ashes

and flint

and the plumes of the sun.

Onward, 

Empyreal sailor,

onward, onward shall he rove,

out from afternoon’s crush,

into the flowing road.