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March Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
Sleepy bored despairing,/ gray beard, gray jacket,/ blue jeans,/ blue cap./ Beloved Labrador’s gentle gaze/ lends solace./ Handcrafted sign requests help;/ holding few coins,/ your box yawns open/ walking stick sighs./ Resting beside canine friend/ you breathe.

February Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
The wizards in old tales/ used to bury their hearts in secret places./ And unless you dug up the heart and / destroyed it,/ they were invulnerable and heartless./ Part of my heart is buried in People’s Park.

Finding an Escape from the Streets of Broken Dreams

Fiction
Mitch suffered the double whammy of a pink slip and divorce from a red-haired beauty half his age. After months of depression and passivity, he arrived in the Golden State and wound up sleeping on the cold concrete of Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco.

January Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
grab your tent and screw the rent come occupy/ join the slackers and the hackers occupy/ meet the folks who lost their homes/ meet the folks who never owned one/ meet the folks down to the bone/ you’ll find you’ll never be alone/ grab a sign and join the line at occupy/ admit you’re the 99 and occupy

UC Bulldozes Community Garden in People’s Park

News   Poetry
Bulldozers destroyed huge numbers of healthy plants and trees at People’s Park in Berkeley on December 18, carrying out the orders of University of California officials. The bulldozers destroyed all the plants and flowers that had been carefully tended for decades by volunteer gardeners, leaving behind stripped earth.

December Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
“Arrest the homeless,” they do cry. Complete the economic genocide. From sea to shining sea, there is no place for him to pea. / Arrest him for vagrancy, arrest him for loitering, but just insure there is no tolerance. No shelter from rain, no shower to wash away the pain.

November Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
Moaning, crying, shouting, begging./ A man with rags;/ Children with scratchy, thin, worn-out/ blankets, infested with mold and lice./ A baby, with nobody to hold her,/ comfort her,/ or even feed her./ We can help.

The Mosaic Tree: A Community Creation

Poetry
The tree we created is a fascinating reminder of what can be accomplished by a full spectrum of people working together toward a worthwhile cause. When it storms, this tree will hold fast to its roots. Raindrops can resemble tears. And like tears, they will one by one dry.

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Poetry
While Occupy Oakland protesters were marching in the streets, another wing of the anti-poverty movement gathered to take a stand against injustice. Instead of marching, they were drumming. Despite the harsh reality of poverty, people at St. Mary’s manage to find hope amidst the struggle to survive.

Songs of Social Justice

Arts and Culture
“It’s been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come.” Sam Cooke saw that change coming, and sang it, and wrote it down in indelible words for all of us to see. Nothing can ever erase his voice now. Nothing can stop that change from coming.

September Poetry of the Street

Poetry
With more foreclosures/ than in Great Depression/ with no solution to unbearable/ homeless lives and the/ massive redistribution of wealth/ diminishing collective mental health/ with a President who plays it safe/ at every decisive moment for change/ keeps the generals and/ Wall Street happy/ there's going to be more and more/ homeless children and huddled masses

Homelessness in Art from the New Deal to the Present

Arts and Culture
A new book by San Francisco artist Art Hazelwood, Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present, examines the legacy of political artists from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. It also serves as a catalogue to a traveling art exhibition.