Lullaby for the Unlovable

A colorless weather in this bleak place,

uncomfortable inconvenience to a lone, late passerby.

I go intact by mad miracle or perhaps, divine grace.

The gray sky lowers, the winter’s night opens its eye,

Motherless sons and daughters sleep nearby,

Phantoms of failure, society condemns.

Hush, forgotten ones, don’t you cry.

This little lullaby, how can it save them?

Stars a stupid confetti in a lidless room of concrete and sky.

Bits of burnt paper wheel across the blackness.

Teeth chatter among dusty, broken sighs.

Hunched in black on the periphery, a silent witness.

Who is this furious boy? One of many blended in stillness.

Inhabitants of the night, the faces have no features.

Hush, forgotten ones, don’t you cry.

This little lullaby, how can it save them?

The tongues of hell in his ears,

Voices a crackling static, like bad radio.

Broken puppet abandoned by the puppeteer.

Dirty, matted Jesus hair. His face turns, wordless and slow.

Had a god closed his eye and let him slip? An ambiguous shadow?

Human heart condemned to die, not by deed or law, but indifference.

Hush forgotten ones, don’t you cry.

This little lullaby, how can it save them?