City Eyes

[popsadie]

City Eyes
Ive lost my city eyes.
Those blinkers which slowly slid down them?
snatched away
The rusty sheet I once thought my conscience?
disintigrated
The cracks in my being are now exposed
Guilt trickles out of them

Sure I've been to confession
The easy stuff anyway
That one night stand
The casual lies
You know, those sins that surface when you're down on your knees
but this is harder

It's a scab i just keep picking at
Politely stepping around that 15 year old on Grafton Street
Looking away while a granddad slept in the cold
I seem to keep chapping this old soul sore
And feeling the January chill on my lips
I search in my purse for some relief

 

[DancingBarefoot]

I like this one popsadie. I don't live in an urban area, but I can relate to the final portion of your poem, based on my visits to cities here, in the US. There's always a guilt and/or saddness that comes over me and I've often wondered how those who live in cities deal with this everyday.

"It's a scab i just keep picking at
Politely stepping around that 15 year old on Grafton Street
Looking away while a granddad slept in the cold
I seem to keep chapping this old soul sore
And feeling the January chill on my lips
I search in my purse for some relief"



------------------
Nichelle
**Still looking for the
face I had before the
world was made....**

**Work like you don't
need money, love like
you've never been hurt,
and dance like no
one's watching.**

 

[popkidu2]

yeah, totally. I visited India a few years back...god, I just couldn't deal with it the first few days. I close my eyes and I can see this kid, deformed hips, deformed face, limping around the Agra station begging. So many of them, standing around you, begging. And yet you knew you couldn't help them all. There was just no way. So you turned and walked away. But I *still* see that kid when I close my eyes. I can't escape him.....

 

[The Wanderer]

The rusty sheet I once thought my conscience?
disintigrated
The cracks in my being are now exposed
Guilt trickles out of them

this poem really makes you stop and think, and you know it's easy to feel guilty, but you can't take the blame for the faults of the world

I don't know, I live in an urban area, I see these people and wonder what happened, how it came to this, I try and give them some spare change if I have it, but I don't have much money of my own to give away... besides, I pay taxes and it would be nice to see the government utilizing more of OUR resources doing things to help these people, rather than spending a billion dollars on a Stealth Bomber or Billions of dollars on missle defense systems and millions of dollars on sleezy election advertising, etc, etc, etc...

but yeah, it's sad, sometimes I feel guilty about not doing more, but maybe if the people with the power cared, I wouldn't have to feel guilty for them

I wish we had a few more people in this world that used their influence to help people the way Bono does

 

[BabyGrace]

popsadie, I know exactly how you feel
except I literally have nothing to give now except my own two hands because my parents are still providing for me...
and I don't do much because I am so consumed with school and a sport...a sport that all those people out there don't have enough money to even consider
I agree with Wanderer though. It is easy to feel guilty and it would be so much better if people who were in charge would stop and think for a moment...even that vandalism thing in the White House...when I heard about it I just thought, "think how many people could have been fed"
it really is infuriating and I wish, too, that there were more people like Bono out there
all I can say is that this poem shows that you care...it is not your fault

------------------
Everyone argues, then we do what I say.
-Bono

 

[zooropamanda]

popsadie, i have written one about the exact same thing. Its called 'Grafton's Kids' , its around here somewhere.
So, yes I know exactly what you are talking about.
Hardest thing I had to deal with in Dublin.

 

[foray]

Originally posted by BabyGrace:
I literally have nothing to give now except my own two hands because my parents are still providing for me...

Yes I think that students can't do much because of this, but remember there are always the holidays to volunteer somewhere. I worked at a women's refuge center for the battered once I finished my exams. It was easy, all I had to do was call them up and they employed me, so it is not as hard as you think. I also think that it's the community you live in; some places there are simply no shelters such as these.

I'm not a Singaporean, but let me share with you how it is like over there. There are charity orgs of just about any kind, and many are government funded. So, the public are not obliged to donate to beggars on the street, because all these vagabonds have to do is go seek help at one of those orgs. This is because the quality of living there is one of the best in the world. Singaporeans in general are very careful with their money, and it's one of the good things about that country, because the poor are provided for. There's also 0% illiteracy, from what I hear. I think this is an ideal situation.

foray

 

[foray]

By the way, I thought it was a good poem, popsadie.

foray