Clothes for Friendless Men

These are the clothes for friendless men,

creased as their faces but beyond their grief,

these relics not venerated but on display and sale,

in all their crumpled gracelessness,

cast offs on a jumbled table,

telling their tale long after their wearers

had any need for clothing.

Nylon shirts and unravelled braces,

left objects and traces from a better dressed

generation that breathes no more.

Sharp creases in flannels that have survived

desitution and linger unloved

in backroom charity warehouse racks,

overcoats in standard issue British drab

half heartedly eaten by unspecified moths.

 

These clothes their only leftovers,

labels unreadable as Sanskrit,

fabric imprinted as profoundly as the Turin Shroud

for those who can read such things,

from days when even gravediggers

wore semi formal attire to do away with

their well togged brethern.

Trilbies delicate as fossilised dodo eggs

wait for heads no longer there,

destined to be undoffed for ever more.

 

What do we expect as we rummage through?

Smell of brilliantine or bay rum, a pawn ticket

or some mournful stain?

Or maybe a glass eye or unexpected tanner

in the lining of a Jermyn Street jacket,

or half dentures ready to chatter in the hand

of the unexpected finder.

 

Knitted cardigans, mustard grey,

reflective of long days lingering alone,

for it was always the way for most of these men,

who came and went, said little, left nothing

behind themselves otherwise,

and even the shadows of their homes

have been erased.

 

There may be a bespoke place in the shadow,

where the well-starched souls quiet wait

their winged tailor sitting cross legged,

in some unchanging other neighbourhood,

tending to the needs of friendless men

who have been and gone.