"The Snow Man" ---- by Koon Woon as homage to Wallace Stevens

“The Snow Man”


One must have a bottle of Gallo in this cold alley
And to shake the cops and other winos
And be on the look-out for some sucker to roll

It has been a long while since my abode
Was taken from me not because of ice or lice
But because of the drive for condos

That in this high rise reaching town
Where all the Californ Dreaming has lost ground
To the sound of broken bottles

Which is the brittle psyche of fife
Which leads the rats from places bare
To places that don’t any longer sustain life

For the dweller of the alley, who is on dope,
And nothing, I mean nothing, beats a quick fix,
Nothing that is pure nor is impure.