Jack.


Jack rests stiffly on a fire-hydrant,
knees pressed up against a bristled chin,
rocking ponderously to a private song,
he nods and hums to the trepidation
of a passing banker.

"What is truth!" Jack bowls at a curious dog,
no sense or reason upon his breath,
"I'll tell you truly, upon my grave
truth is a scam we best betray!"
A dog's tale to be sure,
issued by this dire knave.

"Truth indeed! Humpf harrumph!
I sit here not at all,
or do so at my leave,
and gather change and small debris
so not to sweat a bead."

The dog looks blankly, at poor Jack,
who most plainly threw his back,
or suffers by some great distress,
as presses from stained sour lips
a most alarming gibberish.

"I say again, I say it loud,
I do not sit among the crowd,
Tis true I promise, true I say,
                         hmmmmm...,
methinks a lady walks this way..."

Jack turns to greet this nice young maid,
who pauses at his sight,
but lifts her glance abruptly,
and stiffens in her stride.

"My oh my, I was mistaken,
no person passed my simple station,
was nothing but an apparition
projected poorly by my vision."

Greatly to his consternation,
he far too clearly apprehends
the mix of guilt and monied fiction,
which hide his face, and even smell, from
the public which nigh would see'im.

"Woe is me, woe is my,
to dance a dream of dreary sighs,
hear me dog, and hear me well,
I can't forget, this life is Hell."

And hell it is to speculate,
that a dog may think or reciprocate!
Poor Jack, poor he, methinks
the divil has off-ed his sense
to prattle such stuff as this.