Looking for Kerouac’s kindness in the wilderness by Matthew Borczon

today even the outside
needs an overcoat
as branches cut light
into slivers across city streets
I’m bent over walking
like I’m a hundred
years old  because today
like every day
I’m a hundred miles
from healthy  an hour
late a dollar short
and I’m caught in
a laughing nightmare
a strangers dry kiss
and I’m not this tall
so I can not be
on this ride
so I walk the long way
back toward something
I think I lost long long ago
between the graveyard
and the ball field
between the factory
and the ship yard

and just because I lost it
doesn’t mean I don’t need it
its older than the language
of my grandfather and useful
as a one eyed man in the
land of the blind looking
for the devil in the details
and the angels in the ruins.

Matthew Borczon is a nurse and navy sailor. He has published two books of Poetry, A clock of Human bones from Yellow chair review press and Battle Lines through Epic Rites Press his third book Ghost Train will come out later this year from Weasel Press. He publishes widely in the small press.