Rocky Street Prayers For Sinclair Beiles. Poem by Mark Hurlin Shelton

Composed at the Times Square Cafe in Rocky Street, Yeoville, late 1999, a few months before Sinclair's passing.

My poet friend, sir Sinclair Beiles
Who has survived through many storms and gales
Comes walking in out from the rain
Hey Sinclair 'Good to see you again'
And placing his umbrella down
He grins his grin and looks around
The waitress smiles and says hello
And brings him a cappucino
He wears a tie like of a clown
And grins with no trace of a frown
By night he plys the surgeons steel
By day crafts words that make us feel
The ordinary things of which he writes
Become rare moments of delight
all of which impress on us
The sublime and the ridiculous
He daily wages war with words
With adjectives and nouns and verbs
He will not relent
With passion and a quiet rage
On an unthinking and unfeeling age
While all the world pursues mere cash
He salvages his jewels from trash
And shall not forsake the poets vision
For internet or television
I come drink coffee at ‘Times square'
I come to write and grow my hair
The service sometimes polite or rude
Depending how much you tip for food
As I glean my teeming brain
To the sound of falling rain
Which damps the passing feet of folk
Who come in here to eat or smoke
They carry dreams on tired feet
Our prayers fly up from Rockey Street