jerry hughes - NIL DESPERANDUM

It was cold and wet
and there he was,
sitting on a park bench,
sorting his worldly posessions
into a plastic bag.

A book of poetry,
a comb,
darned socks,
a grubby shirt
and seventy cents.

I said, 'G'day mate,
what's your name? '
He answered, 'Hope.'

SEQUEL

The park bench was there,
but not the man who called
himself, Hope.
Had he become, as Greek
philosophers describe,
a last despair?

I asked some fellow passers-by
if they'd seen him. 'Who? ' they asked.
A rough and ready said, 'Mate,
there ain't no hope - never was.'

But a dog-eared book of poetry,
a comb, darned socks, a grubby
shirt, and seventy cents inside a
plastic bag suggested otherwise.

jerry hughes

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nil-desperandum/