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André Mangeot

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Pond Life

Back then
we were caddies

a term almost noble
for most of us out there -
no more than serfs
a shadowy brotherhood
legendary bums

Oracle and Numbers
Saigon and Psycho
The General, The Judge
The Singing Foot

existing on divots and scraps
(10% of nada is nada)
grown used to the doormen
the waiters, the locker-room boys
that look they all threw

that nothing came
lower or cheaper -
we'd crawled from
the pond ooze
the streetwalking alleys
hard by the stations,
those airless brokenbacked
hostels
that drew us
like termites

and yes, we were bagmen alright -
up manicured fairways
round transit carousels
down darkened stairwells from
Munich to Malmo -

fulltime humpers of shit
(60 pounds of ironware sometimes)
twisting our spines
so their's remained straight

and still we kept coming -
penitent shadows
all the time running,
running from something:
the dole-queue, the debtors
a woman, the bottle
ourselves.

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