He plunged his hand in the half-fitted
electrical socket, absorbing electrons
and sluicing them through to his core.
A recreation fit for a man of no station.

The nightmare of homelessness’ prospect,
the jarring from entrepreneur to beggar
was not a loosely whispered theme
but the pocket-guarding we recognize,
whose opening threatens to spill
more than simple vanity.

His watched as his insides tumbled
into the street, broken beans of pride
nestled between the acid
and the hernia he gave himself
coughing out the last of his security
amongst the well-wishers
attempting to shield themselves from his need.

Discomfiture had not yet defecated itself
through his seams and the letters and links
he sent out as a man trying to hold a lifeboat
without the fervor of clinging hands.
The ache to survive not a desperate one,
desperation having kicked itself out
over the politeness of circumstances
that called for something else.

Turning back into himself, he *****
his fingers as he pulls himself out
of the electrical socket, and walks to pick up
his innards on the street where they lay,
his pride now a forgotten thing
like the pocket-guarded slacks
with the loose seams.

‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the homeless, old man begging for change
On the green line station me and my friends get off at to buy coffee
He turns and looks at us
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the toothless, old man on that cold winter night
As we preemptively pull out our phones and look down at the ground
A defense mechanism
‘I ain’t tired!’ yells the hobbling, old man as we pass him by
Without making eye contact or even a sympathetic nod
If only I had cash on me
‘I ain’t tired!’ repeats the mentally ill, old man while we descend
The stairs down onto the pavement and into Chinatown
The snow continues falling
‘I ain’t tired!’ echoes the starving, old man
His voice ringing in my ears long since we’d left ear shot
The only time I had the courage to glance at him
He was a mess of wires and bone and cloth and paint and white hair
Older than the city I had just begun to explore and call home
Permanently on that train station yelling
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’
‘I ain’t tired!’

A rickety iron bridge
worn out by time,
roofless, look up
to an intriguing sky.

My spirit leaped out,
a meteor shower, along
with the blue moon and stars;
it looked down at me.

Epiphany, not a dead one
ferns sprout from cracked walls –
mute spectators to life.

The raintree standing on the right
homeless, dipping its leaves
into the stream,
meanders through me,
the moss-covered bridge –
transient. It was my place, ours,
yours and mine. Homeless.

Little feet walking
Endlessly far
Big eyes  wide open
Only seeing the war
Little hands clutching
everything nearby
Little skinny bodies
Numb, just wanting to cry
A child tired  and hungry
With no place to go
No  destiny nor future
Nothing... No home..
Eyes big and wide open
Seeing only the dark
That ..... people
is our
refugee child.

Shell
🐚✨

If I could only
grasp the wind,
then I would know
how freedom feels -

And if I could
know you once again,
it'd take these
blisters off my heels.

For now, I'm lonely -
scratchin' skin
beneath the rags
of where I've been.

Staying outside
my broken mind -
too afraid
of looking in.

Cold waves gushing
Making the Night shiver,
Diurnal folks in comfort of cosy beds
dreaming a happy world,
But like nocturnal birds I'm awake
Sitting on a leafless bough;
Benumbed and desolate,
Prying to catch a sight of fire,
In the meantime,
Trying to guard cold with my bare skin.

Does society need a push to be made just,
Can we not together find solutions set to last,
Homelessness and poverty rife with shame,
With people given numbers but no name.

Are we so callous, blind and proud
To block our ears from cries so very loud,
Their wants and needs not our concern,
As we shake our heads with gazes stern.

Gone are the neighborhoods that kept us close,
Replaced by ones which only inequalities expose,
Gleaming steel towers where merely money speaks,
Silent neighbors with no word spoken for countless weeks.

Corporations filled with wanton greed,
Blind to crippling poverty and need,
Governments complicit in this crime
Grasping for income all signs of morals they begrime.

Solutions few, decisions hard,
So many options by self-interest barred
And yet in some humanity prevails,
Providing sustenance that such humanity entails.

To the rest of us, the watching masses,
Idly gazing through rose colored glasses,
The moment beckons for a  society to heal,
Lest that apathy our very soul forever steal.