As yet untitled . . .

A poem I wrote yesterday and read at the "Verbatim" open mic poetry session :-

A street or two away from the bright lights,
but a world away too,
you might just find him delving through the bins,
a piece of urban detritus, set adrift on another rainy night.
He does not know any more who or where he is;
his eyes see nothing of the world in which he used to live,
your world - for that was before the day he died,
the day the music died, that was
before the blood in his veins was turned to straw,
and his soul dried out and shrivelled.
Once he knew all the songs,
once he knew all the players.
A flick of his fingers, and the lights came on back then,
when his world was laughter, and cheers, and applause,
when there were still things
in which he could believe,
when there were still pains and pleasures he could feel.
There was a time when nothing could go wrong,
when he was the lucky man,
the man with the charmed life, blessed, indulged,
delighted in by his own guardian angels.
And then it all did go wrong, then
it all did go. Lost is all he is now; the street lamp
picks out a single feather, floating.
And there are no tears, only rain,
and the angels, if they are there at all, can no longer fly
in the cold and wet.