Image by James Jarvis via Flickrby James Jarvis
09/30/04
(with apology to Alexander Pope,
a poem about the
Westside homeless veterans shelter
in Inglewood, California)
Resentful walls!
whose irksome sound contains
Repentant sighs, the roar of 'slaminoes'
and rappers' vile refrains:
Ye rugged jocks!
which smoking rock has worn;
Ye sots from taverns
shagg'd by florid whores!
Casemanagers!
they shuffle stacks of paper deep
while R.A. vigils pale-ey'd curfews keep,
And pitying saints,
whose weary wallets learn not to weep!
Halt! who goes there?
Friend, felon or both?
It isn't true
their crimes have caused me wroth.
They pimp thier god, gone right ahead;
pretending Right and Wrong is dead.
Sad popes of Westside!
suffer not the manners of the apes
and those who stand knee-deep
in unpoddy-trained fertile pride.
Though cold like you,
unmov'd, and silent grown,
I have not yet hardened myself to stone.
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