POW PROMPT 20

I thought this well known picture of James Dean in New York would make a good prompt. It suggests something gritty, inner city and aloneness... A look that can be recognised in any city, anywhere in the world.

This is a poem by Charles Bukowski which in my mind relates to this picture. It is called " Young in New Orleans "

YOUNG IN NEW ORLEANS

starving there, sitting round the bars
and at night walking the streets for
hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and hardly charmed by the
world,
New Orleans was a place to
hide.
I could piss away my life,
unmolested.
except for the rats.
the rats in my dark small room
very much resented sharing it
with me.
they were large and fearless
and stared at me with eyes
that spoke
an unblinking
death.

women were beyond me.
they saw something
depraved.
there was one waitress
a little older than
I, she rather smiled,
lingered when she
brought my
coffee.

that was plenty for
me, that was
enough.

there was something about
that city, though
it didn't let me feel guilty
that I had no feeling for the
things so many others
needed.
it let me alone.

sitting up in bed
the lights out,
hearing the outside
sounds,
lifting my cheap
bottle of wine,
letting the warmth of
the grape
enter
me
as I heard the rats
moving around the
room,
I preferred them
to
humans

being lost
being crazy maybe
is not so bad
if you can be
that way
undisturbed.

New Orleans gave me
that.
nobody ever called
my name.

no telephone
no car,
no job,
no
anything

me and the
rats
and my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.