someone's happiness

i sat in the soft glow of the train stop
behind graffiti that just screamed
and didn't actually say anything,
many strange smells caught me
as this man in filthy shirt and ripped jean
endlessly played an imaginary drum -
he played it so hard that his pants
had begun to slip off without him noticing it;
(i don't think his boxers had been washed,
i think they were supposed to be white,
but they were so long with
the filth and excrement of time
that there was only a faint resemblance
to that of its pure and original make.)
he was playing as if it were
the most important show he'd given in years,
there was someone to impress,
someone to move with swift hands
and bury the embarrassment he was now living.
his fingers were callous and rough,
course from hitting the air so hard
in his cyclical four movement passage.
his right hand began to cramp up
and was followed by a whimper and a long sigh ~
something had set in where he realized that
he wasn't the man he once was,
he lived off the worlds left overs
and could only make music with the air,
but at least he often forgot.