Agamemnon Poem by James Mullaney

A sitter of public benches will come to
in nether fog tonight.
He drains heeltap from a beer bottle
and lights a nubbin.
Pigeons are roosting but who can say where?
The scabrous skin of this urban autochthon
bubbles with pustules;
the whiffling fringe swaddles larval eggs.
He rises and declaims: Lines from 'Agamemnon'?
Or the gibberish of dementia praecox?
Earlier, while he was foraging for food
in the back of a chop house,
a peace officer sauntered up and said:
'Get outta my garbage.'

Get outta my garbage!

He reclines.
The hollow heart at the core of the wild nighttime
beats time in desolate duple measure -
red light, broken promises,
green light, a penchant for grandiosity -
and trucks thunder in the mute naught
like iron stallions,
or the iambs of Aeschylus. That cordial detritus
teetering on a sewer lip reads:
'It's Our Pleasure to Serve You.'