A realization

I walk down the streets
In the most heart wrenching parts
Of this town
I see the cold unwelcoming concrete
Walked on by soiled defeat
The broken buildings
The pollution
The gravity of the poverty
In the darkest corners of the city
Where it is the seediest
The people the neediest
Broken dreams etched on their faces
Cemetery of self esteem haunting the eyes
Spirit un-nurtured, practically butchered
Toothless mouths, dirty soiled hands
By things hard to fathom
By all that has been sold for ransom
Empty pocket broken locket
Cold machines, another cold can of beans
Whiskey scotch and rye horded by some guy
An unsavory favor done for flavor
For fleeting moments of pleasure in
Unconscious measure occurs in the park
Not necessarily in the dark
My eyes try to bleed out the pain I see
This place is an open wound
Where souls are marooned
Forgotten and sometimes boughten
Salt, salt, rains down on them
Salt it is not my fault one cries
Salt assaults
Oh leery, wear, teary ones
Lost in unending queries
The ones who appear blurry are worry in a flurry
Starving souls, starving hearts, starving bellies
Starving shopping carts
Love deficiency
Empty cans, sour odor, ignored motor
So many everywhere, they are so
Miserable not invisible
Their clothes tattered not that is mattered
My heart cries for them
What can i do?
Interruption by someone shouting obscenities
caused by maybe more then one identities
Lucky there is no difference between me and you
old man Lue half Jew colored blue
wearing a tattered shoe times two
Then it dawns on me.
They are discarded pieces in me
that i have not yet dealt with
that i have not yet found a home for.
Homeless
The fact that these people are here confirms that
I still have much work to do inside
And so do others
when we have all done are part
with that place inside are heart
then we will no longer feel apart
and see people,
pieces of ourselves living like this
there will be nothing left
but a rusty old shopping cart.

to sign my name to that one
by Jessica Schab