Marching, hopping, running, waddling
down the street, people with working feet
oblivious to the stares of the woman
in a chair.
Why would they see her?
She's not even their height!
They are just people plodding and
plotting, lives rotting slowly away.
But, back to the woman in the chair
Snooping on the crowd
Watching the mothers tug at toddlers reins.
Rowing teens shouting "bruv" a lot!
She's mocking the crowd in her own way
She has become them, just invisible.
She likes it like that, knowing of you
Yet them not knowing of her.
Her awareness is acute, sees the businessman
in his suit. The homeless man in his home
called box, the elderly matrons
moaning about bingo.
The drunk with his bottle clutched as tight
as the baby clutches her bear.
The smokers all congregated at the altar of tar
The shopkeeper eyeing the kids, missing the thief
The security guard, guarding the pretty
Little things, no, not the jewellery the
teenage girls! Oh, his eyes are popping!
His legs are twitching. His fingers itching to touch!
Along with the sights are the sounds,
shouting, laughing, heckling and coughing
Smell,also plays a part in people watching
fast food, sweat, the great unwashed.
All plodding along, flocking like birds
clogging the street, swapping gossip,
unaware as always of the
young woman in a wheelchair.
© JLB
Kuebiko (see earlier poem) In Japanese mythology a scarecrow who cannot walk but has comprehensive awareness.