mangled, adultered shoes take a walk
down hastings and ninth
and are devoured by passing diesels
while on their way to the incinerator

beggars sit begging, starving, dying, rotting
on the side of the road
as their final plea for help
goes unanswered,
muffled by the screams
of abused prostitutes
as their murderers laugh with each bloody stab
of their swiss army hunting knife into her
sobbing heart

meanwhile,
in harvard, self-absorbed blond-haired women try,
try, try as they might,
to find the meaning of life
as well as pick up a few dollars
along the way

along hastings and ninth,
drug pushers regurgitate their stash in
ford econoline 150's onto the
addicted masses

and a Man,
faceless, nameless,
who can, truly, be called
a Man
sleeps under a ravaged, tire-beaten overpass,
wondering where, oh where, His next meal
will come from.

He has but a plastic bag and a
purple bicycle to his name,
whatever it may be,
which is probably just byproduct
of his childhood, unspoken of,
and there are a thousand and one stories
behind that purple bicycle, unspoken, unseen.

and i look at the Man's eyes, his old, battered, beaten
eyes, which must have seen a million stories in the short
lifetime which He has lived.

others merely pass by and give uneasy looks
as i sit down with Him and listen to the wisdom
that He has to give.

we share a joint, and He tells me of His days,
the good old days, where children respected
their elders, when no sooner than he was old enough to
go to the ballots on his own, he was stolen, and taken
to Viet Nam, of how His comrade, his brother, no less,
took a shell in the arm while trying to defeat
the enemy, and He put down his M-16 and went and
bandaged him up and sent him home to the medics,
told him everything was going to be okay, and was forced
to return to His gun and continue the hell,
the losing battle,
and of how His comrades
would have done just the same
for Him.
of how he watched helplessly as his friend,
his blood brother, of twenty-four years,
happy, play-filled years,
with whom he spent his fifth birthday, with whom he bought
his first baseball cards, with whom he went on their first
double-date with the two most beautiful
sixteen-year-old women in all of brooklyn, he was forced to
watch this young man,
lost far too soon,
get his brain blown clear out through the license-plate end
of his skull, and the Man continually has, to this day,
night-terrors of that mediocre day when his blood brother
forever lost
the right to freedom of speech,
the right to freedom of religion,
the right to bear arms,
the right to a trial by a jury of his peers,
and, above all, the right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

He told me that when He came back "home",
the american scene was completely different.
His mother and father had died tragically of a
broken heart
and His remaining family had long since split apart
and moved out of that old, tattered apartment which He
had so lovingly called home for eighteen short years
and He now had to fend for himself with
no prior experience in the profession

He had attempted employment at
7-11's
taverns
auto dealerships
schools
ralph's markets
and the like, and was fired by idiots on all counts
due to various charges, thinly-veiled insults.

as a young man, aged thirty years
when the conflict was over, now his age meaningless,
He was forced to live on the streets of the
civic center of the city which He now called home,
san francisco
"I love this city" He told me, "This is the one city
where even homeless men may live in peace, though we're
simply unable to live comfortably". night is drawing
upon us now.
He continued
"and you can't give up. Don't
ever give up. because when the man tries to force you
into a checkmate, you have a choice, either you can make
the next move, you can pull a castle, or you can resign.
the question is:
which move will you take?"

the trash fire is warm, but nowhere safe from the storm
but under this overpass, where the echoes of the volvos
above lull a baby,
stricken by disease,
to the last
instance of sleep that she will ever know. she peacefully
hides behind the wall of sleep now, never to return to
tell her end of the story.
the planet would never have listened anyway.

the moon, high in the wintry sky, is half full now.
i decide to spend this night under the overpass with
the wise young Man, and fifty-six is such a very young
number, to learn more.

that night, i dream a dream in which, after the Man
departs to the next level of consciousness, because of
his good deeds in "life", he acquires some ownership of
the Universe and the vast oceans of energy,
emotional, factual, and spiritual,
that it contains; "the Synnergy" as he called it
(i refer to it as "exapolis").
He is reincarnated on Verdant, the home domain of
all those who are truly important to
those and the Universe around them, and gains
exclusive access, and i am proud of Him.

i awake the next morning when the sun is above
the overpass.
the Man tells me, "last night, i had a dream that You
became successful in life and married a beautiful woman,
and i could see the wedding reception from above. i didn't
stay around very long, i wanted to go see the Synnergy
in all it's splendor."
we shared a can of tuna and a loaf of bread for breakfast,
and i decided that i best be moving forward to the land
where it is always dusk and the three moons dance in
unison across the sky.

and before i left, the Man gave me a joint, unused, and
sent me off with One last piece of advice:

"Don't give up the fight, Boy, don't ever give up the fight."

Kourosh Taheri
10-9-99

04/07/2005

Author's Note: First of all, yes, the title is taken from the Metallica song. I don't like Metallica, but I did when I wrote this, and I felt (and still feel) that the title fits the poem. Also, the line "the trash fire is warm, but nowhere safe from the storm" is taken from Metallica's "Low Man's Lyric", and, thus, is a reference to that song. I was inspired to write this when I was driving through San Fernando with my dad one day (while I was living in LA), and I saw a gentleman riding a purple bicycle with a plastic bag on on of the handlebars, and I just thought of what he might have to say, so I wrote this. I hope it's alright.

Posted on 04/08/2005
Copyright © 2024 Kourosh Taheri-Golvarzi