These things I see,
each day,
as I wander round this great, gaunt city.
I.
Mornings I hear her.
and the wail of those hungry tired children,
shadows beyond the frost cracked windows
of her battered Toyota.
When its rusted rear door swung open
as I passed by,
I glimpsed her, with sickly kids
in ragged clothes and shoes unpolished,
that sudden pale of fear, flitting like the shadow of a bird
across her face,
all of them shivering in the dull morning chill
amidst bright multi-coloured rugs,
hues of stark red and green and purple,
some yellow,
reminders of happier days,
and the scent of stale chocolate milk cartons,
hitting the day from the car's inside.
I've seen that fear before on women's faces,
as some man stands not far from them across the street,
the clenched anger,
old hopelessness,
the bitter eyes of blasted hope,
refugees from clenched fists,
a face of fury,
memories of dinners late-prepared
flung across the kitchen table.
I do not approach.
I am a stranger, male,
and doubly dangerous.
In the bright, cold sun of the later morning
the car is empty, locked.
A passer by, not a woman,
tells me, "She's been there for months,
with those kids, too.
Somebody should do somethin'."
And I think,
"Why don't you?
Why don't I?"
…
III.
He sits alone on that city park bench,
every day,
week-ends too,
shirt ironed,
suit trousers pressed,
with some mysterious iron,
tie neatly knotted,
tailored coat pulled tight across his shoulders,
sleeves beginning to fray,
always clean shaved,
his despair growing with every evening's
five o'clock shadow,
shoes polished like a mirror.
Not old,
home gone,
wife gone,
kids gone.
He was a money-man.
That much I know.
Once those computers with their profit graphs crashed around him
life and the dollar-signs drained from his eyes.
Some days, there, on that park bench,
he sits and weeps all day,
clutching a paper-bag of cheap fried chips,
his only food.
Some days I sit across from him,
legs crossed on the heat-blasted grass,
a ragged reminder of what he might become,
feeling a strange compassion
for this one faded capitalist.
We never talk.
[Abridged from the poem This great, gaunt city. Visit beingahistoryheadandotherthings.blogspot.com]