Daydream

by Sue Ellen Pector

Of hunger's many faces
I dream,
fresh food to eat,

clothing, sans rips and patches,
that fits and warms,

closeness, fun, laughter
and rest.

In Praise of Older Hungry Women

by George Wynn

In my San Francisco of the 1950s
older latdies wore gloves
shopping at the Emporium

Now we see on Market Street
older ladies with outstretched palms
and worn-out clothes with cardboard
"give what you can" calling cards
in front of them reminding us of
Dorothea Lange's ruined women
of the Great Depression

If you and I enter a trance
to escape the image of
their present circumstance
and go back in time we might see
 young dreamy faces even after
a hard day's work on the factory line
or young hearts sore but full of fight
after a long day of blows on
a post-war picket line

Who knows, we just might get a
true picture of their elegance

San Francisco History

San Franciscans dance to the tune
of "Homelessness by the Bay"
on the retro jukebox
with their eyes closed:
in spite of all City Hall's
boasts and toasts
we still have the highest
percentage of homelss
people per population
of any city in the nation

It's 2013 and still
the drained and pained
unhoused batallions
of brokenhearted
shopping cart
soldiers come and go

It's still the same old song
with very little
being done about the wrong

George Wynn

Homeless poetry

I went to a show on Thursday night - music. Thollem Mcdonas and an amazing drummer, improvising. Really incredible. See his site. Fingers flying and such a grasp of music.

Outside the venue there was a homeless woman selling Street Spirit - "Justice News and Homeless Blues in the Bay Area". So I bought one.

The whole issue is poetry, and some is pretty damn good. I'm going to periodically post some.  Here's one:

Scapegoats
by Joan Clair

"Their transgressions, even all their sins...he shall put upon the head of the goat and shall send him away into the wilderness."  -- Leviticus

I feel the weight of collective sin in the soup
kitchen, not to be escaped on the crushed
shoulders of those eating silntly there,
eathing the lie they have nothing to share,
a bread so heavy it hasn't the leaven
to lift thier souls to a new have.
I smell wafts of scapegoats in the air.
And there are those who would do more
than allow a few to feed
the bodies and souls of those in need.
To solve the plight of those they want unseen
they'd drive them entirly out of sight
from their solitary ghettos
into the wilderness
bearing all our sins.