4 posts tagged “poetry”

Low Income Rental - Alabama

Woods Hole Ferry

Crossing briefly this mirrory still Galilean blue water to the heaven

of the affluent, the users-up, unconsciously remote

from knowing themselves

our owners and starvers, occupying

as they always have, to no purpose

the mansions and the beauty of the earth

for this short while

before

we all meet and enter at the same door.

Franz Wright  (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

Reprinted with permission God's Silence

The American Claimant

In prosperity we are popular, popularity comes easy in that case,

but when the other thing comes our friends are pretty likely to

turn against us.

Mark Twain, 1892, ch 12

It Isn't Poverty

and yet it is.

Stairwells that are urinals,

the sweet-sour stench of gin and vomit,

failure smells like these.

Sirens and screams,

a sick child's whine,

these are the songs of failure,

its voice.

Failure feels like dampness,

the fog that swirls through deserted train yards,

the dankness of dim alleys.

I've tasted it.  The iron and lead of blood

and fear.  It is mold and  mildew in the mouth

and rancid grease, and it won't spit out.

Failure lives alone.  It pulls the shades

and walks through dusty rooms, trailing rags,

avoiding mirrors. There is no phone.

 Sue Scalf

Reprinted with permission from Ceremony of Names, 

A/C and a flower

1 comment

Other Poet's Anti- Poverty Poems:

The Beggar's Song

I always go from gate to gate,
soaked to the bone and all burned up;
All of a sudden I'll lay my right ear
in my right hand.
Then my own voice sounds to me
as if I had never known it.

Then I don't know for sure, who it is that's screaming,
me or just somebody else.
I'm screaming about next to nothing, really.
Poets scream about more.

Finally, I close my face
with both eyes shut;
which looks as if it's in my hands
with its whole weight, and resting.
That's so that they don't think
I don't have a proper place,
to lay down my head.

Rainer Maria Rilke

               Soul

I suppose it is safe to say

that the soul is like that stuff that

keeps the still flame of a candle

afire until the wick of its center

burns down to that black mote

of string wedged in wax at its base.

Love's length is sometimes like that,

less stellar against ongoing time,

and even river banks get razed

by the flow they are supposed

to fence.  Have you ever studied

the soul inside a person,

or do you sense it can't be seen,

how it craves to pillage places

where it can't find peace?

Willie James King

(Reprinted with permission - published in Wooden Windows )

The Prophet

(On Giving)

And who are you that men should rend

their bosom and unveil their pride, that

you may see their worth naked and their

pride unabashed?

Kahlil Gibran

No buses here.

Cheryl Lynn Moyer FEMA Journals - One Year After Katrina -

(Sample Chapter)

Chapter One - Disbelief

Out There
(Boligee, AL)

The last lingering rays of sunset
framed a shattered trailer
surrounded by a flooded field
of discarded tires,
cushions and cans floating
in circles of oil.
"Don't go out there,"
I'd been warned.
Six months after Ivan's wrath,
I thought, "Who could survive
like this?" The tall black man
was angered by the disbelief
on my face. His hands
and face were clenched.
I told him,
"I'm not wading through all that."
So he lifted me aloft, cautiously
carrying me through the stink,
the flies, and the muddy water,
dropping me on his doorstep.
Inside his home, I surveyed
smashed windows, mildewed
walls and furniture, no
electricity, a stained mattress
in the dry corner, with a baby
wrapped in a soiled towel.
I tapped - Replace All -
in my government computer.
I glanced at his ID,
then he carried me back
to another world.

      Since I was traveling the back rural roads of Alabama, there were no street signs or any sort of identifiable public buildings to mark the way back to my motel room. Fortunately, the goats were still grazing at my first turn. A farmer chasing his escaped cows with his truck pointed out to me, the rest of the way.
      It was now late November of 2004 and lumber trucks congested the roads by day. Trails of cotton stuck to the their edges, having blown off overloaded trucks crawling towards the local cotton gin. The previous day I had stopped to pluck some cotton as souvenirs. During the heat of the day, I bent over and worked my way across the field grabbing the soft stray blooms. My sweat slowly began to drip into my eyes. Even so, it was a strangely satisfying experience for this 51 year old New Jersey woman. Then at the corner of the field I caught sight of an old decaying scaffold. I ominously felt an overseer's eyes peering across a recent century, disapproving of my slow pace. I laid my cotton collection back down on that hallowed ground and returned to the relative safety of my car.
      My 1998 Oldsmobile had become analogous to my time machine. Inside, the computer sucked up all the numbers and information I fed it, whirling on back-up charged batteries. However, it's location finder was useless, claiming none of these rural roads existed. Neither could my cell phone connect to the current century. This "Black Belt" region, as it was referred to, had slipped between the cracks in time.
     The absence of speed limit signs and the infrequency of traffic encouraged my sometimes reckless driving. Long flat empty roads begged fast speeds. My curiosity often precipitated u turns in the middle of nowhere. Cows blocking the road again, could be the catalyst to backing up long distances to look for another way.
     Being lost was a daily ritual that began at the local post office, where everyone had a box for mail pick-up. I would receive directions to someone on my list. After I completed their home’s inspection they would describe in detail how to find someone else, or ride with me to show me the way. With luck I could find 6-8 people a day.

     The paperwork was a nightmare. Or lack of it, I should say. Both trailers and shacks were passed down from relative to relative without any documentation. Families lived clustered together along dusty unpaved roads. Running cars were shared with abandoned ones parked all over their yards for parts. Driver’s licenses and identification were unnecessary. No one patrolled these areas. If someone had electrical service, extension cords were run from house to house. Utility bills were seasonal and shared. I had trouble proving what property belonged to whom. I had to request that everyone get notarized statements from whoever they had bought or received their property from. If it was a rental property, in most cases the owner had never repaired anything ever, but I couldn’t help any tenants. In one trailer, a tree and large sections of their roof still lay across the floor of their living room. This elderly couple that lived on SSI benefits could not afford to remove the limbs nor were they physically capable of the effort. No landlord in sight! I lectured their neighbors on their moral duty to assist them and checked back several days later to deliver donated materials. Meanwhile my motel office collected a stack of incoming paperwork for me by documented owners every day.
      Not only was I shocked by the way these people lived, they were amazed by my existence. To them the FEMA signs in my windows were a warning I could not be trusted, I represented the federal government. So when I told them they would receive a check for repairs, they became nervous and suspicious, “No please, I can’t pay it back.” Many would not sign my inspection reports for processing at first. Until the FEMA checks started coming in. Real money! In their name! More than most would see at one time in their whole lives, as much as $20,000 or more!

 

Alabama Poet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An infectious disease
spread through the air
or blood.
 
Nor a dominant gene 
passed down
from father to son.
 
No one chooses
to go out daily
 alive with hunger.

It is a silent burglar
with a sharp knife