Roof Today

If you have your roof today—
Warmth, love enough, a place to sleep,
to sleep perchance to dream:

Cherish and say thanks.
Help others, you’re free to do so,
you are set, find someone without
their roof… give them Dodger
tickets, hope—

Thought a rainbow, fresh peace is sun
after the rain, clouds dispersing in
that cool crisp sting of clear.

Rain mists too, slows down, go
to Passage Ways in Pasadena they’ll
give you a poncho. I know because
I used to go, I lived without a roof,
sober but homeless,

Having discarded all that goes
with fancy private schools and
country clubs. If I a writer wanted
to be, how could I write from BMW’s
and souped up SUV’s? I had to
drop, write from the streets, only
taking enough of Mom and Dad’s
money to avoid being an SVU suspect
on TV.

Pee-yew!! Who knew? You knever
know when you start a rhyme whether
it will come back in books and shine.

And when you let the street be you?

Curious we all are to know how “I’d
do out there.” Thank God Mom and Dad
care. Not enough to have given me
a bunk they called me out for a punk
but we take what we can get,

And in this find what we can find,
growing, loving, singing in rain

as clouds close to pray for more rain.

The sun, it breaks, the clouds—

try to relate, this is me
dealing with tough neighbors
on Easter Break grateful for a roof
overhead, and all the pain
endured from Jesus to Mom to make
my life more than a goof