The Transients

Gregg Shotwell

(I)
After my son died in the war
I wore his hat and vest
His leather bracelets
His ring his dog tags his jacket
I clutched everything I could
Of his vanishing spirit
I wore his vestments
Like a swathe
On a wound that wouldn't heal
Commemoration was my mission

(II)
Death is not a stranger
But grief is an orphan
I had no desire to let go
Of a sinking compulsion
I dove into the undertow
(III)
Diaspora never ends
Every transient understands
The arc of justice bends
Toward the pinnacles of power
Time is no healer

Every wanderer confronts

A moral judgement
Who are you to defy order
Who are you to deny conformity
The Gilded Moral
Give to the poor
What they feel the poor
Do not deserve
Transients haunt
The streets of America
Worthless disposable but
Permanent and irrevocable
As the automaton of profit
Defiles every torso beggared
On the crossroads of America

(IV)
I wore the vestiges
Of my son's death
Like a cape of commitment
To transients whom Capital
Can neither capitalize nor consume
America cannot tolerate on its face
Slavery massacre genocide
Abandoned toxic wastelands
Losers have their place in the order
In my isolation I recognized my standing
I wore my grief until my face
Was inscrutable as ancient languages
Etched in stone with tools crude as pain
One face among many faces
Trespassing the plains of America's desolation

​

(VI)
Faces of transients
Older than the memories they contain
Lines chiseled around the mouth and eyes
With blunt voices and words of disdain
Faces scuffed like soles
Faces that live up to names they are called
Faces that can't fake it at all
Faces that lack all expectation
Faces that spit and expect spit back
Faces that cry like ice when they crack
Slugged faces
Shut up faces
Faces that turn faces away
Faces afraid they’ll be called on to say
Who they are and why
They have arrived here now
Faces that gave up long ago
And go on just to say I told you so
Faces dumb as barrels
Faces dull as door knobs
Faces bleak as bent nails
Faces that scratch your eyes out
With a glance
Faces that won’t let you forget
Faces that don’t have a chance
And don’t know it yet
Faces deserted like scenes of disaster
Faces in control of the pain

Faces like windows wet with rain
Faces you can read yet never explain
Faces that grieve
Faces that grovel
Faces blunt as the grave digger’s shovel
Faces in mirrors
Faces on fire
My face as I face
The naked desire
Of America's grief
And tremble like a thief
In the light