the cloak

mid the grey desolation
of a rainswept galway street
colour tore my vision
from dreariness and fret
a cloak of ebon silk
lay crumpled in the mud
meshed with silver hues
and ochre tainted gold
a spider's web of threads
sent blood among the sheen
woven so by fingers
with a knowledge that is gone
and knowing came upon me
in a drumroll of heartbeats
the lost cloak of poetry
the mantle of john keats
and hunger came upon me
i snatched at it in greed
but it fluttered and it melted
into concrete into clay