The People of the Street
With homelessness running rampant and many homeless suffering with mental illness, I thought I would ‘pay tribute’ to the unfortunates…
Rough and tumble they may be
But inside, they have love.
They do what they must to survive.
They fall down, they revive,
They walk on, because they must,
And so they endure; they BE,
The people of the street.
“They” closed the care hospital
And let the people out.
The people were not well.
But the government made no plan
To take them in elsewhere,
And so the patients were at a loss
As to where to go,
And they wound up on the street.
They joined the ranks of the unfortunates
Who also landed there—
“Fallen through the cracks,” the officials said,
But they could not find these folks
A resolution that would work.
And it became an era from the past
With beggars in the street
Crying “Alms for the poor,
Alms for the poor,”
And compassion died
From over use.
You think that you have it tough.
This old gentleman of the street
Has Alzheimer’s.
He’s forgotten where he left his tent.
A fellow homeless takes his arm
And leads him to Union Gospel Hall
Where free meals magically appear;
He’s lucky on this night:
He gets a foam mattress on the floor.
But he cannot sleep; he’s looking for his tent.
His friend takes an overdose
And he holds his friend until he sleeps.
Help is on the way, but not this day
Fast enough to save a life.
Alzheimer wanders through the streets.
Schizophrenia stalks the alley ways.
There are no cops to walk along these beats.
The people of the street, they sleep with strays.
Alzheimer man is looking for his friend.
He’s forgotten that he died.
And from the start until the end,
He doesn’t know his brain was fried.
Sometimes you think that you have got it tough,
Maybe you can’t pay your bill today
But you will tomorrow, and that is sweet.
But think a while of the people of the street.
Credits: Dozing man, top – Photo by Leroy Skalstad: CC0 Public Domain, Free for commercial use, No attribution required.
Man on park bench: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Homeless_and_cold.jpg
