Frigid Fire
by Odin Roark

For the inner city
Downy snowflakes of gentle touchdown
These embroidered stitches of nature’s necessary purge
Share the covering of refuse cans
With abandoned cars
Well-scavenged dumpsters
Giving momentary purity
To groveled living buried beneath chaos

Moving across gilded elevated luxury
How gentle purity’s finding of impoverished dreamers
Where windows girded with fire escape shadows
Display a child’s wide-eyed wonder

Yet

Behind such innocence
Hovers the parental tempest over bills not paid
Dished unwashed
Clothes of odiferous venture
And a family mattress of questionable habitat

How easy to ignore
How removed from the suit and tie everyday concern
And yet with a coating of winter-shroud
Everything appears new
Hopeful
Pristine
Doable
Even for the angry

Somewhere among this populace
A few this night
Will light candles for solace
A Butane stove for comfort
Even that cigarette
The only get away comfort for many

How sad when sleep’s absence of conflict
Leaves behind a burning cigarette
A reefer
The fired up bong
One’s escape gone rogue
Tipping the balance of life
Into an inferno

Melting comes the frozen peace
Rendering fireman’s effort iced
Slushy
Unstable

So goes the forgotten everyday game of survival
The all season frigid fire
Known as poverty