Contributor: Richard Schnap

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In my back yard I saw over the weekend
A man sleeping beneath the hot sun
Shirtless and shoeless upon the green grass
Surrounded by the stumps of cut down trees

And I felt that he had also been cut down
Reduced to the realm of shelters and soup lines
Driven to find some secluded place
To forget for a time his wretched fate

By morning he’d vanished without a trace
Back to the shadows where lost souls dwell
As I wondered if he had been just a ghost
Wandering the earth with no place to haunt

But I have seen him in the world before
In a different shirt, different coat, different face,
But always the same longing look in his eyes
Wondering where his broken road will lead next


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Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.