Kenneth Kubacki

A Portrait of Homelessness

Beneath, a maelstrom’s fluid fuming,
running, parting anthill domicile,
a heart driven to a dead, green tree.
Fluttering, festering Union Jack, give
me back Saint Patrick’s saltire.
Feasting Black ire boils and roils 
beneath the print of paw left by each tread,
old burns of emery, silk, and lead.
 
Forgotten tattered sails, scattered tomes,
homes of eagle’s eyrie, lion’s lair,
to there, repose, fair, unfettered,
near one dead tree. Me? Caressed
within the hollow, here lies so and so,
though bearing buried grudges below.


 


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Kenneth Kubacki is a senior at Lewis University, minoring in Film Studies and Creative Writing. He currently works part-time in the manufacturing industry as a machine operator and material handler. This work was intended to express the idea of struggling to find “one’s place” in the world. This is meant to include identity, self-worth, and even the literal sense – physicallyoccupied space.