The People You Meet Under Bridges Poem by Gordon R Menzies

Shaded from the day, with
skins withered by the hot hands
of the demons they converse with there
and their eyes more empty than
the bottles briefly held and loved
the many empty bottles, clustered
like aborted children at their feet
indignant mouths wide, wailing from kisses
all too brief, sucked inside out and pissed
into the river there beneath the
flurry of fulsome lives overhead
racing each other in enamelled
brightly coloured impossibilities, but here
there is nothing but the whir of
their passing and the soft consolation
of pigeons singing from filth and shadow
Here we smoke found cigarettes
drink the cheapest whiskey, speak
with passion and perceived eloquence
our best adjectives the ones our
lost father's and wayward brothers
taught us indirectly, caught in our
little ears like drifting dead fish
on rocks, and never forgotten

We look into the speeding river
from time to time with narrowed eyes
happy our reflections are a blur