How He Entered

This is how he entered, how he came in

With an open heart and his eyes wide

A rubber in his pocket

With odd socks and a skip in his step

In an ill-fitting suit with something up his sleeve

A sliver of a dream, a last chance

And the fear in his eyes of how dear it was held

This is how he entered, how he came in

Falling from the back of a transit van, crumpled

Desperate for relief from the humdrum

Each step a story, a song in the making

Each step cemented the leaving

The broken hearts left behind

They were just material to him

And how they would come to pursue him

How they would eventually come to drag him back there

This is how he entered, how he came in

With his hair combed, he stood in the doorway

Like a lost dog holding his missing poster

Just to be sure, to be sure everyone knew just how lost he was

Telling his stories, he broke onions and sang his songs

‘The street-walkers carol’, ‘Soft tissue’

‘The fear of emptiness’

‘Planting holes to grow some money’

These were his songs and this was how he came in

This was how he entered, how he came in

With chips in his pocket

Just waiting for a chance to get into the game

With his hair combed and the checks on his shirt just right

He sang of it, but knew nothing of it

A house of cards by an open window

A bag of fragments, an unsolvable puzzle

He knew nothing of what you needed from him

He knew nothing of giving

He only knew of his desires

He only knew of that moment

This is how he entered, this is how he came in

This is how he entered, how he came in