His Remains

Alone in the Shadow of God,
He bleeds music into the darkness
From between layers of the past-
Mouths long forgotten words
Whilst staring into shop doorways
Where drunks dribble vomit
Into frozen crystalline mandalas.

His present is an intrusion,
A knot in before and after:
He is beautiful and terrible
In the deliberate forsaking
Of easy halogen comforts
In temples where we bow our heads.

Catching his voice
Whilst avoiding his eye,
Numb to the cold night airs
And lack of graces of passers-by
Who glare
Affronted
Then slip
Into
Memory
And
Are gone.

He sits. He waits.
Pursued by nature for this
Defiance of time.
I love him for his unnatural symmetry,
Eyes glazed like a lover,
Torn apart on the white teeth of trauma.

Here
Alone
In the shadow of God,
His remains
And mine.