Empty Boxes Poem by Eric Cockrell

woke up to Voltaire
and Tolstoy, black coffee,
and cigarettes....

heavy fog on a crooked road,
Christmas lights blinking,
and a dead stillness....

the moan of empty houses,
empty factories, empty streets,
and the whisper of children,

food stamps hung in their stockings!
an old stray cat waiting to be fed,
and the heaviness of the mongrels,

left to work the streets.
somewhere bells are ringing,
right here not the scent;

a cross painted on a brick wall,
empty boxes blown by the wind!