Charles

                                   Charles

Insanity prevails on the corner of 4^th and 23rd

A decrepit and ailing residence

Aged beyond repair

Stands in stark contrast to neighboring homes

Shrubs march up the sides of the house

Growing in a boundless formation

Clinging to wooden batting is thick moss

The cracks in the glass acquired from neighboring children

Remain amidst inclement weather

Charles is the proprietor of this home

He pecks in his yard like a chicken

In his dairy boots, cutoff jeans and a wife beater

A pronounced limp beckons attention

His beard holds remnants of his last meal

He rummages in refuse

Tinkers on trucks permanently disabled

And grows a garden of weed

Carlos, his Rottweiler stays chained

Cheap beverage cans stack up like boxes

Eighty living as fifty

In the evening ladies of the night

Enter his cosmos

Some missing teeth, some missing attire

It is said that he lost his parents at twelve

Left an orphan he became a mechanic

At the age of twenty-five

A car accident took his awareness

And the right to a left leg.

Charles may not be fit to live

But he lives fit for himself