A Migrant Worker’s day Ends
By Claire J. Baker on After picking 50 boxesof grapes, hands stung &bleeding, she restsagainst a haystack,inhales in unison with cows. sheep, a curled dog.Nestled in
Street Spirit poetry
A Thin Line to Homelessness
By Perry Terrell on Avoiding homelessness Is a jobNo one should haveBecause it is serious and inhumane hard workHowever, I amFacing living on the streetsAnd
Coffee Truce
By Claire J. Baker on Imagine a truce calledover made-to-order coffee—mean words surrenderingto flags of coffee fragrance,dreamy humidity of steam.Envision conflicts re-placed by slurping sounds,the
Writers
By Perry Terrell on Sooner or later Writer’s need a real audience Writers need someoneTo listen To what they have written Unless it is a diary or a
Lemon Wedge
By Claire J. Baker on She sips gingerlyfrom the cup of“try again,”acknowledgeslife’s lemon wedgebitter-brighton teacup’s rim.She tells us the wedgeis a yellow sailon her spunky
Sonoma County
By Elias Gutierrez on I’ve seen your pretty postcards,Your fancy cheeses,That world-renowned wine.I’ve seen your pretty town squares,Expensive resorts and your small-town livingBig house
Which Road Do We Take
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
The Comfortable and the Cold
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
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
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.
January Poetry of the Streets
70 and Determined
by George Wynn
It’s strange
to be an old man and
begging for spare change
and the
November Poetry of the Streets
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.