Tag Archives: poem about the homeless

As Above Not As Below: For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 544

2 Replies

As Above, Not As Below

I’m plodding, I’m plodding to the sacred north.
It takes all my power as I journey forth.
Is it possible I walk on air? I must examine twice
the ground I pass over, then I see I tread on ice
frozen to translucence, so I see the world beneath—
another watery world below, protected ‘neath its sheath.

Spellbinding order reigns below with creatures slipping by,
protected from the thunder of a threatening sky.
When lightning hits behind me, I hurry helter-skelter,
searching for protection from any nearby shelter.
But alas, here up above is not as below.
So near and yet so far away is that undertow.

Caught in my world, I pass above where I would choose to stay.
It flows beneath me peacefully as I pass away.

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 544 prompt words are: north order hits thunder search freeze journey spellbinding power sacred

When I see the disenfranchised and homeless passing through our town coming from South or Central America with nowhere to go back to and yet having no place here and no real place to go to, I wonder how they feel, observing us in our lives that must seem perfect and without problems. To see and not to be able to have must be a heartrending situation.

Homeless

22 Replies

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.

Homeless

Incomplete women and incomplete men
schlep up the avenue and back again
bearing their bundles over their backs,
the remains of their lifetimes stuffed into sacks.

Patiently trudging with impassive faces,
trying to find the impossible places
where they may rest, be they new ones or prior,
to find a safe haven and build a small fire.

What have they done to warrant this life?
To live out existence that cuts like a knife?
A wife who couldn’t put up anymore
with an abusive husband? A bully and bore?

Are his brains addled? Is he confused?
Were they once children neglected, abused?
They sit collected, their backs to the wall.
What will society do with them all?

Collect them in shelters or drive them away
from Interstate medians where by night and day
they lie hidden by bushes, secure, so they think,
to dream away days or to shoot up or drink?

Such wasted lives that have slipped through the cracks,
stripped of their power, defined by their lacks.
They line our sidewalks, devoid of our riches,
to show us society’s obvious glitches.

Prompt words today are incomplete, bundle, patiently, schlep and prior.