A hand up, not a handout
This national poetry day, we asked out community champion campaigners to submit poems in support of our campaign to Stop Mass Homelessness. Read the poems below!
The View from the Packet Inn – by Mark
See you – by Sonny
Adjectives – by John
Kaleidoscope World – by Mary
Wi’ the looks of Vic n’ Bob’s Uncle Peter,
He’s the social-fucking-baro-meter,
matted hair, pins walk past his
dog’s-eye view, one pair, reminds him of
Donna, before this blitz, on frozen pavers, can
no longer sitzen, where the strange ignore and
sometimes spitzen, while dreams are raw.
So stop. Take time and f***ing listen.
“It’s cold” we cry, It’s cold, she cries.
Dispaired of these Samaritime Museum
mannequins, gawping reflectively in their
Gap-windowed mind-the-gap in their
humanitarian gap-year-educated
boat races, untill rain turns them to
duck and cover from the cries
of someone’s mother.
He often wishes his patchy fare could be
groomed like geezer’s there, but
this fixed wheel of life allows, none of
these pleasantries and platitudes, he
angers-up, with their attitudes, as
one in a thousand does allude, to
thrust a coin of a ten-bob hue…
but fails. Plays busy. Comes in for a pint.
Off the floor to walk around, past the
old football ground, warm the feet,
keep them moving, before they are
involuntarily so. Occasionally, he hears the roar of
victory or lucky draw. His old man once did
tell him about rental-shop-window tv crowds,
he ponders upon nostaligia briefly, when
life was beaten out him weekly,
in each round of the sweet FA cup.
Thrust into the gilded street,
lily-white without the pictures,
a free-papered glimpse at the
weekend fixtures, he’ll
keep today’s, might just need it, although,
he already knows the score:
Capital one – Him f*** all.
When I was a kid
I used to wish I had the power
to make myself invisible.
Turn it on whenever I wanted
and roam the streets
like a superhero.
This feels different though.
Like you see me
but don’t want to see me.
Which means my power to disappear
is entirely in your hands.
I don’t wish for invisibility anymore.
A bowl of soup would be better.
Or maybe a look
next time you pass by
that says you’ll do more
than write a poem or formal letter.
I put that window in myself;
the house was blind to its garden.
Cycle home, bedtime stories, food,
mucky clothes, bolster, lump hammer.
Smack smack smack
the bricks stack
on the kitchen floor.
It’s a mess, but who cares? It’s
my house.
Now there’s a window I can see
my garden.
White house
Beautiful garden
Bleak street
Damp cardboard
Man with a home
Man with nowhere to live.
Homeless is not a word.
A homeless man’s sky miscarried a blue moon,
I stumbled upon his raw pain on a London street this afternoon.
Christmas eve could have wrapped up a present for him:
a heart-warming address,
at 2b road, in a box room
with a card signed by the angel of love,
before he feasted on a cocktail of diazepam pills mixed with
leftover booze in bottles,
a heart-warming remedy,
gifted to him by an anonymous rubbish bin
for his ice-cold shivers.
Christmas eve could have wrapped up a present for him
before he overdosed on his last feast of hopelessness.
As he takes his last breath b r e a t h,
I see the solid earth of his existence, with invisible frozen hands, reaching
reaching the depth of his despair to hug his stillborn moon.
I see the blood that could have flowed in his veins, from his blue moon,
I see the golden wings of his stillborn moon’s soul
I see I s e e
but my warm hands can’t r e r e r e a c h can’t reach the depth of his despair
to hug his stillborn moon.
I see a shaft of light rising to cough up his last miscarried dream of a
a new dawn that could have seen the light of the day.
His stillborn moon’s shadow is buried in the lake of what could have been.
Clouds like procession of mourners throw rain dust
over stillborn moon’s shadow grave
and soon, over his ashes.
Tonight a new crescent moon begotten by a cloudless sky,
will tear the flesh of darkness apart over the chest of
a London street,
as humans rush,
each walks back to a warm home and an esteemed identity,
many with smart phones that don’t recognise as worthy news
the death of an invisible homeless nameless non-entity
but this afternoon I stumbled upon his raw pain
on a London street,
his miscarried dream of a new dawn could’ve seen the light of the day.
New dawn rises, as humans in their rat race rush
on a London street,
while in my sky, from the dawn of endings e n d i n g s,
a startled sun will be rising r i s i n g,
that won’t warm up his ice-cold shivers left sheltering in my mind
left sheltering in my heart.
Rushing humans won’t notice their street ever housed an invisible man
but this afternoon I stumbled upon his raw pain
on a London street
and my warm hands couldn’t reach re r e a ch
couldn’t reach the depth of his despair
to hug his stillborn moon.
The wind is wailing for a blue moon that could have
been born with a cry tonight
Christmas eve could have wrapped up a present for him tonight
before he overdosed on his last feast of hopelessness.
There’s new pictures beckoning
In my kaleidoscope world.
Look, there’s kids playing shop
With chocolate coins and laughter.
They sell seaside rock with ‘Be Fair’
Imprinted all the way through;
The grown-ups join in
Till their welcoming homes
Draw them all back to
Where optimism grows like sunflowers.
I look again but
The focus has shifted and now
And the hallowed ground is barren.
Sickness and injustice haunts a desolate landscape
Of missed connections and disconnections,
Where the cold streets offer no respite
To those who have lost a place to call home
And the weight of human tears
Threatens to drag the earth from its orbit.
I don’t want to look anymore
But incurable curiosity
Wins in the end.
Now both visions are overlaid
And vying for attention.
Tired but tinged with hope, I slip into sleep
With Midas gold
Melting in the sunshine And sunflowers beckoning us home once more.
Change a vendor's life this Christmas
This Christmas, 3.8 million people across the UK will be facing extreme poverty. Thousands of those struggling will turn to selling the Big Issue as a vital source of income - they need your support to earn and lift themselves out of poverty.
