Solitude and Hope: Y'all Come Visit!

In a flophouse room
At the epicenter of America
A neon sign blinking red
Through the cold window
He sits quietly
Like a small idea
In a vacant mind.

At earlier times
In other rooms
Dusky afternoons
Seemed like birds sitting
In fragrant orchard trees
Making a few concluding remarks.

Or how as evening fell,
The sky tore open
Like a fisherman's net
And the brilliant moon swam out.

But that was then
And this is now.