Rest In Peace Smoking Joe

I met him volunteering at the mission he'd come in around noon,
slurped his soup from a bowl hands to shaky to use a spoon.

Residing in a hovel call the Empty Arms Hotel,
light years from heaven, next door to hell.

Shuffling along, repetitive staccato mutter,
smoking ciggy butts he finds in the gutter.

No one to care if he lives, gives a Damm if he died,
his soul long ago committed suicide.

Neon light through a tare in the sheet streams in,
ilumanating him pass out on the floor reeking of piss and rotgut gin.

Bedbugs and fleas sucking him dry,
a fly sipping from the corner of his eye.

thirty one years a coal miner left him a broken man,
his wife died of cancer, his son in Vietnam.

They found him decomposing a locket and dog tags clinched in his hand
his ashes scattered in potter's field all part of God's plan.