On the path,

A television had taken a dive off a muddy ledge, now laying broken in half, inhaling old fish bones.

En route to the sea,

Numerous vagabuggers had braided tall palm reeds together, where they could hide from the wind to drink with jack and a fire made of rusty shoe-laces.

Underneath the bridge,

They urinated and tried to wash away the marker stains of the ghetto kids who drew grotesque faces of sun-maddened octopi.

Along the dunes,

The litter was interrupted by bits of fermented beach and sprouts of funny colored grass.

Behind the salvage-yard walls,

You took your life in your own hands and your prayers walked with you as jabberwokkies and jawas watched from their breathing straws down in the goopy lake where they and mucky ducks swam.

Below the leaning houses,

Disease infested swing-ropes twisted in stale breezes as swamp-squirrels ran hither and yon to take new rumors to the crippled spiders, snakes and rabid beavers that rat-holed those places of wet clay and dirty wine.

As you hoped for the ocean,

You couldn’t help hold your nose, passing broken sleeves and sweater, socks and old shirt, all because there was no toilet paper store to offer its services down where dirty magazines torn to shreds did cry out their wares, all before the oil of vermin would see them become one with the brine which bled black through the rivers.

———————————The book on vice in my hand as I strolled, it spoke to my soul, as it lived out its promises in the byways of men who had not cared for their spiritual centers.