Well, since the deadline is upon us, here's a last minute effort:
He has traveled and he has traveled
To Iraq and back
Then with backpack
And army issue duffel
Along the long highways
Of the fifty states,
And again across an ocean.
Now backpacking through Europe
To round out the experience of youth,
To find excuses to keep moving on,
To make an army cut a rebel’s shaved head,
To change into the uniform
Of a wandering poet,
Twenty-first century bard.
The beat of the same songs,
Still the beat of the same songs
Have accompanied him through the experience
Of food, sleep and death
In lands of war and lands of peace.
Now he wears those songs about his neck
Prepared to try, in the beat of his own words,
To fill the space between his hands
In which he suspends the whole round earth as he has seen it.
He searches for the words to show
The way the wide curious eyes of children are the same
As they watch him pass
In a Jeep through Baghdad,
In a Ford through Kansas,
In a bus through London
Searches for the words to show
The white teeth of welcoming smiles
The white teeth of grimacing pain
Searches for the words to show
Dirty alleys
And long stretching grasslands.
Hot desert sun
And long northern nights of questioning darkness.
She has lived her whole life in the same city
And in the same city
Of tree lined streets she walks to work each day
And each day takes a break
To have a smoke at noon.
Sits on the steps
Leans forward in the bright noon sun
To hear the words of a stranger
What he has to say
What he has to share
And he pauses before
Simply asking for a light.
Originally Posted by autolycus
Lovely sense of rhythm, with some memorable lines. I also particularly liked the ones Rintrah quoted and the whole "deduction" section. 
"It's so mysterious, the land of tears." 
