Don't Ya Know Joe

Monkeys fly      
from banana trees        
Inside his mind      
Knapsack Joe  
can hear their screams        
Laying on a park bench   where vagrants sleep nodding off the booze        
Sunday morning news   pulled across his face        
on Tuesday        
 
And he thinks        
what was it  
that she said        
 
She believed he would   be something        
someday        
She couldn't know        
 
And what did she know anyway        
Just a pretty girl        
sitting next to him        
at a picture show        
 
With a perfect face        
in the dim light's glow        
And Joe knows        
 
He should have told her all his dreams        
Made them her        
realities        
 
With baby faces        
smiling back    
from the pages  
of her scrapbook        
With his eyes        
and her looks        
 
A violent shudder      
shakes his bones      
Remembering      
the sound of babies    
Crying floods his mind    
 
Mud and blood caked      
landslides of bodies        
naked and dirty        
On the ground        
 
Screaming        
Kill them all        
and burn it down        
Don't leave a trace        
of the mistakes        
 
Then more full body earthquakes        
break the memory        
Binging back Joe        
to his aching bones        
 
Warmed in the morning as the sun shines  
bright        
Horns honk and blare        
at lazy traffic lights      
 
Inside the cars      
impatience only cares        
for their entitled rights        
He gave up the fight        
to return to sleep        
Time to move along        
 
A quick cold breeze        
inhaled by a yawn        
becomes exhaled coughs      
 
From a cigarette butt     he tossed beside  
a discarded  
snack wrapper  
 
Wind lifted to where leaves scatter        
and land against        
the giant gnarly toes        
of trees  
 
That stand        
without interest for Joe   and he knows        
 
They will be there        
years after he's gone        
Never giving him        
thanks or a thought        
 
For the water        
he spilled for free       
every morning        
washing their feet        
 
Before heading off        
to roam city streets        
Studying the faces        
he meets  
and sees  
Nothing  
he can recognize       
 
Just countless  
downcast    
disassociated eyes        
Every one of them        
hidden by a mask        
to disguise  
 
What lies they've told  
and left back        
in their bedrooms       
apartments and homes  
 
All locked up tight  
But Joe knows        
The truth gets exposed  
 
When he picks       
Through the trash         
for second hand treasures to find  
what he needs  
 
To survive all alone  unknown        
A forgotten man        
keeping their secrets        
Just like his own        
from once long ago        
 
When he stood proud     protecting their lives        
and land  
With a gun in one hand and a lie on the other     
 
Inherited        
from his father  
Passed down  
and fed to him  
when he was        
a hungry young man        
 
Who soon became old   then returned home        
to find himself lost        
In search of        
the life he had known  
But the memory
Is vague and faded

It's stained
Like the keepsakes   
he has left    
Safely packed        
inside the knapsack        
of a homeless hobo        
 
Where no one else knows  
what he keeps  
Or cares enough to know  
who he is  
 
Or who he was  
But he knows      
His name is Joe