Flopped Out by Jonathan Butcher

The morning graces those guttural sounds,
the fast run of errands through the city's
heat, past that garden where no two flowers
are the same, and excludes the ones 
who wish to document the sliver of peace
it proclaims to offer. 

Back to this dilapidated building, 
it's walls grey like fading fungi, 
the unhinged doors hang like the open
scars they poorly conceal, their handles 
as hot as lava. The same clothes hung,
stained with smoke and the same stale stories. 

The bustle of gentry, who perch hands
upon pearl lampshades, ignoring the rapid
passing of feet that struggle to invest in time,
let alone trinkets. They throw little sympathy 
in either direction, leave a trail of stale breadcrumbs
no one can collect.  

That single wise voice lifts slowly from that makeshift
bed, it's eyes like dust covered hub-caps, and slowly
graces the day with the usual lack of expected acceptance.
It rises above this smog once more, to again fulfil it's
mission, to continue preaching the good word.  

Jonathan Butcher has had poetry appear in various print

and online publications including Drunk Monkeys, The Morning Star,

M58, Mad Swirl, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Popshot, The Abyss 

and others. He edits the online poetry journal Fixator Press, through which

his third chapbook, 'Corroded Gardens' was published.