Poetry

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Which Road Do We Take

Poetry
In two weeks/ the amount the world spends/ on weapons to kill/ every man woman and child/ in just two short weeks/ that money would feed/ every soul upon the earth/ no one would ever be/ hungry or in need again/ just two short weeks folks

Unwanted and Under Attack in Their Own Country

Poetry
Re-fancying our neighborhoods,/ we liquidate the poor./ They are not an asset to refinance for./ We cannot see the living assets/ beyond our “perfect garbage cans”/ collecting waste of the lifeless lives we lead,/ full of all the things we think we need.

Corporate Misconduct: Dangerous to All Living Things

Poetry
Drug companies market their super-profitable, addictive and dangerous psych-meds to children. One of the most heinous crimes of the 21st Century will be the massive over-medication of children. Physicians' willingness to uncritically follow pharmaceutical companies' profit-driven recommendations to prescribe dangerous drugs to children will one day be recognized as criminal negligence.

Blues for the Homeless

Poetry
I am amazed at some homeless elders’ carts,/ blankets and clothes in neat folds,/ layers of grace in intricate space,/ Crimes of legalized hate,/ may take the carts of the homeless away/ but cannot separate them from God/ whose home is in their heart/ with or without a shopping cart.

Strong and Unbound Wings

Poetry
We think of you/ long on the streets/ a titanium brace in your bad leg,/ sighing at pain, yet uncomplaining/ like a statue of marble or bronze./ One day, Mike, may you glide/ from your sidewalk perch/ as if you were always a bird,/ and now at last your wings/ are strong, unbound.

The Comfortable and the Cold

Poetry
We still have the highest/ percentage of homeless/ people per population/of any city in the nation/ It's 2013 and still / the drained and pained/ unhoused battalions/ of brokenhearted shopping cart/ soldiers come and go

The Shelter of Love

Poetry
What about street dogs,/ the soft undersides of paws/ laid at night/ upon face or arm/ warding off cold & harm./ Dogs with hungry sorrowful/ eyes will gaze into our own./ If we have zero food/ to offer, not even a bone,/ a dog still claims us,/ downtrodden as we are,/ as his home.

The Flower Girl

Poetry
Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin believed/ “Beauty will save the world.”/ By taking beauty to the shelter,/your flowers saved one part of it./ You smile in the spirit of Don Quixote:/ Free flowers for the poor/ could subvert the whole economy,/ beauty could ruin the banking system,/ kindness could wreck capitalism.

November Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
I remember, / I remember a moment./ When we refused to compromise./ When we decided not to change the rules,/ but the game./ When we made heads spin./ When love became power./ Yes, there was a moment./ We called it occupy.

A Real Poem

Poetry
Whether you’re in prison in New York/ or a detention camp in the fields of Nebraska/ I am you/ Whether you’re sleeping on a square of cardboard in Oakland/ or under a grid in Philadelphia/ I am you/ I am in every living pulsating cell/ that hungers for justice

October Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
The common people should be free/ to lie on public commons grass/ in a democracy/ whether the sun is up,/ whether the sun is down,/ whether it’s day or night/ they should not be put to flight/ the common people should be free/ to lie on public commons grass/ in a democracy.