Beneath the hum of city din, he sits,
A weathered man with fingertips like ink—
Each tap a chime, a memory he commits
To paper curled along the sidewalk’s brink.
His coat is threadbare, stitched with second chances,
A hat turned up to catch the clink of change.
Yet what he sells are more than passing fancies:
He crafts the heart’s old ache in fresh exchange.
The clatter of his typewriter is his tune,
A rhythm forged from loneliness and hope,
As people pass like shadows cast at noon—
He threads their wants through each poetic trope.
“A poem for a dollar,” reads the sign,
“Or two, if you’d like something more divine.”
They come with stories whispered, barely whole—
A breakup, birth, a name they can’t forget—
And he, the scribe of every lonesome soul,
Turns pain and joy to metaphor and debt.
He does not ask what brought them to his side,
Only what feeling they would have him catch.
And when they leave, some laugh, some cry, some hide
The verses like a key without a latch.
His poems do not live in books or fame,
But in the pockets of the passing heart.
Each one a flame that never learns a name,
But lights the dark for someone, for a start.