The Homeless Poet

It is summertime, perhaps July or August,

the sun is sending its rays down upon the city on the Bay.

Racks brimming with vintage clothing: leather jackets, Levi’s jeans, The Grateful Dead t-shirts, and an old-fashioned wedding dress.

Small boxes of crystals, rings, Tarot cards, and colorful gemstones, Alice in Wonderland stickers.

Rows of records seemingly without end, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Nirvana, The Beatles.

Plants spilling from their pots and turning the world into a green jungle.

An old man with a black bandana is sitting on the dusty sidewalk,

whilst groups of people wander by and peer curiously into shop windows.

Beside him is a sign that reads 1$ FOR A POEM.

A green typewriter rests in front of his crossed legs,

a blank piece of paper sticking out of the machine – waiting.

Looking at the homeless poet once more, I continue walking.

No dollars given and no poems accepted in return.

My pockets filled with cash and my heart with longing for a poem,

I did not ask him to write one for me.

Tourists blend into the stream of locals mingling about,

on this endless stretch of road called the Haight Ashbury.

I too am a poet and a dreamer and perhaps even a bit of a lost soul.

Hippies and gypsies and curious folk, and homeless and tramps and addicts, and dreamers and lost souls, and vagabonds.