It was cold and wet <br />and there he was, <br />sitting on a park bench, <br />sorting his worldly posessions <br />into a plastic bag. <br /> <br />A book of poetry, <br />a comb, <br />darned socks, <br />a grubby shirt <br />and seventy cents. <br /> <br />I said, 'G'day mate, <br />what's your name? ' <br />He answered, 'Hope.' <br /> <br />SEQUEL <br /> <br />The park bench was there, <br />but not the man who called <br />himself, Hope. <br />Had he become, as Greek <br />philosophers describe, <br />a last despair? <br /> <br /> I asked some fellow passers-by <br />if they'd seen him. 'Who? ' they asked. <br />A rough and ready said, 'Mate, <br />there ain't no hope - never was.' <br /> <br />But a dog-eared book of poetry, <br />a comb, darned socks, a grubby <br />shirt, and seventy cents inside a <br />plastic bag suggested otherwise.<br /><br />jerry hughes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nil-desperandum/
