Oh, Jean-Michel, we found you!  You were there, a dandelion thrusting past the curb and asphalt seam, where we saw you, and saved you.  You were the voice of the street, Jean-Michel, or so we said.

If true we would have left you there.  It was when you spoke your epithetic murmurs, and we heard the excluded articulate in a way we refused to allow, you had to be allowed for what would you betray?

So, Jean-Michel, “You have talent,” we declared!  And, we pinched it as a butterfly’s wings thinking how much it would bring.  You didn’t struggle.  You impressed an imprint upon forefinger and thumb, one we could not grasp.

Andy:  You painted over me Jean-Michel.

Jean-Michel:  I did not.  I vandalized you, Andy.

Andy:  Still, I do not like what you did.

Jean-Michel:  For, at last it is you who is used.

We could have left you there, the weed that you were.  You would have remained but a rumor; legend denied.  Instead we turned you into one-hundred ten million point five.  One-hundred ten million point five!

Now, there’s a reason to be alive.

Yet, same old-same old is dead.  All this in a birthplace refusing you a home, but for the front gate of an asylum.  Even there, not allowed to tarry.

So, it’s okay, Jean-Michel.  After we’ve picked your carcass clean, and sold what remains of you as though it were ours to sell, we can sharpen our reputations as the overseers of aesthetic wizardry, making a career of explaining you,

and those of you who follow.

We Found You Jean-Michel

In your filthy street
splashed with black ooze
his eyes reflect
the darkness of your souls.
As you drive by chatting
Distractedly, fiddling with the knobs,
he waits outside.  He can’t come in.
Excluded to make the exclusive,
the truth in the lie,
receiving your offer
of kindness and neglect,
detecting you, inspecting you
for a greater mind cast on the outside.
Your convenient despairs
your momentary causes,
pause as you check your hair,
he’s standing there
eyes full of the inner light.
You don’t look past his shoes.
No denouement, no resolution,
just the clock, bastard child of the church
forging your collar with each tick.
Spading your hole with each tock.
With dry, dangling tongues,
loping after the cars before you,
keeping in front of those behind
he’s there as you realize.
He’s there as it dawns
too late for the light
to reflect anything of note.
He turns his collar to the cold
and walks into the shadows
as you run into your graves.

Shadow Man