Penniless Shifter

A penniless shifter on the streets of D.C.,
Legless, wearing rags, pushing a tin cup,
He might as well have died in the day,
In the day of the scourge in the hinderlands.
The pain of the wounds in the rice paddies
Was just the icing on the cake
For this soldier who served in Vietnam.
It was a day of pain. A day of sorrow.
The first day, really, of the rest of his life.
He was a football star in college,
But now, he has nothing to live for,
So, when will it all end for him?

He is fifty-eight now,
But his life began thirty-five years ago.
The fork for him bent in a peculiar way,
To the path of pain and suffering.
He never got to play for the pros
Because 'Nam was the bloody field of play,
But he did win enough to stay alive,
Though it may be his curse,
Because he stayed too down,
Downtown, on the streets of misery.
The pain. The pain of it all.
He lives on the bed of despair.

I walked past the old man today
As I do so quite often.
"Spare me some change?" he asks,
His eyes, tired, all but dead.
I dug in my pockets deep,
Deep in comparison to his,
And I pull out a dollar, said, "This is for you."
The man said, "Bless your soul!"
And I pity him, the fool, raped by life,
Knowing he'll simply drink his troubles away.
He's been rendered redundant
By life's ubiquitous cruelities.
He should pass on to another life,
One more compassionate.
Perhaps this drink will take care of that.