Cardboard doubles
as shredded sheets
"Spare a little change,
trying to make ends meet
Just seeking refuge
from the cold and sleet"

Well, the Savior didn't have a place
to lay His head
So maybe they're closer to Him
than I am

But people see the signs
All they do is stare
Wonder, what's he done
and where's she been?
I couldn't cast the stone
cuz my record ain't clean

No one gave me
the judgement rod
And you, sir, don't look like God
Driving by
rolling up your windows and
down your nose
"Probably for drugs,"
your judgments say
"Lazy *** will
squander it away"

As if you and I
never fail, please don't forget
we've just been given
a better circumstance,
missed some unfortunate
happenstance
Do you squander love?
Waste your privilege?

We're all the same
Skin bones and blood
And I know I'm
begging for change
on the streets of human love
Forgetting I've been given grace
from the Divine
Covered by love that looks like
water blood and wine

Maybe my friend
the "homeless ***"
is really a bit closer
to the One

Swoon to a tearful night, unknown to its grief
Dialogue of peace, and those of plight
Ringing of morphology, raindrops on the roof.
Such things heard from the peasants’ seat
In the many wet heads sopping
In the sonorous waves, upright in the city clime
Untending to their beds.
At the bottom of that something
All told are destined they will find
Be pliable to the ills they’ve dealt
To carry on, to work, admonishments
Said once to justify these red romances
That in every rain storm melt
As pity through the night, forever unclasped
From shackles of their blame
Since life and ideology somehow are the same.
‘Tis destiny for abating storms
As some will rose from their thickened thorns
These nights deliver their gentle morns
All the same as hemlock grows as poison
And is best to be avoided.
How—this, I fear only rain my know—
Can we still bathe in fraternal glow
When some still heal from Death himself
Each breath that enters is quickly prayed to leave
High on seated thrones
Those mean so quick to thieving, the poor
The lazy deserve no quarter
Those dusty pockets afford not one
So steal the heart upon his sleeve.
May we help man wrought our kin and kind
By common tongue, free, as we are ought?
Since another may make my world
He is mine to protect, not throw to bytes
So ludicrous and feeding back upon themselves
For destiny can be remade
If hatred weren’t so blind.

Grasping vagrancy in one's child
Most simplistic act is not
Fractured maternal heart bleeds wild
Suffered soul the abyss caught
Crucible ever prevails fraught

Futile remedy ailment breeds
Posturing all heedless things
Neglecting primal earthly needs
Harsh inebriant trappings
Averse entirely lucid pleads

Clamping malady straining chest
Wakeful blackness vanished days
Clutched slight suckling babe at my breast
Cast tears enduring malaise
Reflection of having caressed

Tragic sustinence chosen vile
Sighted resolves not to see
Relentless self imposed exile
Indifferent to love me
Offer life to capture a smile

Grasping vagrancy in one's child
Cognizant of special spot
An alternative to beguiled
Alter processes of thought
I am needing to know she fought

Drinking is a problem, for some it’s worse than others.
Within each family everyone is affected, parents, sisters and brothers.

That doesn’t mean you turn your back and disown them from their home,
And make them wander dark cold streets, they are out there all alone.

The choices that they made may not have been the best,
But now they face the wind and rain, just wanting a place to rest.

A place where they can get a meal, some shelter and a chat.
They are human after all; they deserve at least all that.

The basic needs of society we sometimes don’t address,
And see these people on the streets and treat them as something less.

Have we suddenly forgotten the values that we teach?
It’s to these people that we should care and to them our hands outreach.

To help them back upon their journey, a second chance to give,
Instil in them the hope they need for a better to live.

On my way home from work
I passed by a *****
In a tent-sized, plain orange t-shirt.
It was forever-stained
With fossilised fluids;
A chest cavity of spilt milk,
And subsequent tears.

A double-take took me
To the green and brown keratin
That dragged relentlessly over concrete.
His sloth paws were protesting
Every step of grey existence,
In the colourful expanse of new morning;
They were clawing the ground
And submitting to gravity.

He looked right on through me,
Through everyone and everything
As if part of a hologram
That was no happier, but at least
Apart. I re-count his limbs to ensure
Whether he is even human anymore.
I surmise: only partially.

He milks his palms whenever possible
To heal the cracks of wind exposure
And old substance abuse.
This was no doorstep lounger;
He was a stray cat with no freedom,
And only washed his hair when it rained.

Then, as I later adjust my mask
In the foggy bathroom mirror,
Mind preoccupied with dissertations,
Affectations and payment schedules,
I realise that it is I who has lost my humanity.

There is a burning thought that cuts through my brain and won't let me ignore the reality of it that breaks through my wanting of the unimportant ... a true story from last week:

At a shelter for those that are experiencing homelessness. I am handing out clothes and shoes. I do this for selfish reasons.  The joy of giving, filling my empty spaces. Giving is a selfish act when it feels so good.

The point of this ramble is....

I overheard two men who picked out shoes and shirts and returned to eating their lunch in the corner. One said to the other, " This is great, this shows you sometimes things just work out right."

My soul rested.