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Open Poetry #11
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Shivering in Mutated Doorways
| Open Poetry #11 |
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Shivering in Mutated Doorways |
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Rosemary J. Gwaltney Senior Member
since 1999-08-26
Posts 997northern mountains, Idaho 
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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The city was empty on Sunday afternoons when I was twelve, riding the bus to press my nose against plate glass windows, memorizing the bright unreachable wonders in closed stores I wouldn’t have dared enter when open; planted along the quiet streets like healthy redwoods rising high and stately; strong & grand, impossible to ascend. ~ Over three decades later, the city swarms on Sunday afternoons, as I try to find a place to park. But instead of gazing into closed, silent stores, I walk past their open doors, with people flowing in and out. ~ And, instead of envisioning the stores as great trees growing, I perceive, instead, the now massive city shrunken and made small with mercilessness. Mounds, and countless heaps of human beings huddle against the November chill, some with bottles of comfort still clutched against chests in their sleep; homeless; defenseless against the mocking, derisive world, uprooted along the restless streets like crumpled, broken plants, gone to seed, frostbitten, and withering away. ~ I walk quietly around them. I wish to buy acreage, pay for porta-potties and garbage collectors, and give it to them all for a safe place where they could still be who they need to be, with no rules, and no police to overthrow them, wreck their meek and miserable camps under the freeways; to throw their sleeping bags in the river while it snows, and chase them off. ~ The paper speaks of a group of a hundred or more, some with families, sane, and afraid to live on the street, fearing the robberies and malicious murders; searching even now for a simple and plain piece of land; and all they want is a place to set up a tent, and live simply, in privacy and peaceful safety. ~ The tax-payers won’t hear of it. But those powerful might be next on the street. For who can know what brought the poor here... or what made them poor. And I can't help but care. ~ All I can do is meet the eyes of the ones still on their feet, unless they are too afraid, or they frighten me with obvious insanity. I see human beings no different than myself. I hand out a bit of change. But far more vital, I give them smiles. I know a man who also hands out food and messages of God’s love. I am not so brave. ~ But it could so easily have been me there. ~ I’m old enough now to get away with it. No one thinks I’m brazen. No one thinks I’m a likely candidate for thievery or rape. And the tired, red-rimmed wrinkled eyes that drink in the warmth of my smiles, always look a bit awed, as the slurred mouths thank me, and they lurch away. ~ Sometimes they look back. Sometimes I do. I hope my care can somehow warm their hearts while they shiver into the night. I consider how the city has changed. I wonder what has brought them here like this. ~ What has disintegrated, in our society, to bring the lonely and friendless curled in the doorsteps, and out in the freezing rain with newspapers for shelter. Sometimes they wake up. Sometimes they don’t. ~ I have. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ [This message has been edited by Rosemary J. Gwaltney (edited 11-24-2000).] |
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| © Copyright 2000 Rosemary J. Gwaltney - All Rights Reserved | |||
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ethome Member Patricius
since 2000-05-14
Posts 11858New Brunswick Canada |
Wonderful, moving, tender, touching and heart rending piece of open compassion and love for one's fellow man...very very deep and inspired work of thoughts and reflections on the unfortunate aspects of reality...and yes if you read my poem 'Legends and Time' here my 2000th post then you know how I see these things the same way...it can happen to those who in a position of wealth and power.... ethome |
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desperado Member
since 1999-05-24
Posts 312FT Hood,Tx |
the world we live in is indeed a miserable place. we want progress and better things, clean streets and low crime and all these things that we percieve as bad and evil, yet we never lift a finger to touch the cause. all people ever want is to make a bottom dollar and live a comfortable life, which isn't wrong, but along the way to that type of life, most forget those who stumble and fell or couldn't adapt to their surroundings. people come to the big cities looking for jobs and find nothing. people turn around a leave these same cities a few years later because of the same things that brought them there. the action, the life. the way the cities seem so alive and constant, yet their eyes only see what they choose to see. you can take what you have written and multiply it ten times over, and you wouldn't get what you have here in seoul, korea. it is not the way things should be. but until we learn to look past what we choose to see and open our eyes, it will never truely get better. homeless people will only be seen as trash, until we can wake up. it's just a shame that so many people go through life in comas. a great poem rose. vivid and descriptive with obvious care. |
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
Rosemary--You have touched upon a sad wound of humanity in this poem of compassion...hugs to you for giving your smile and for your sweet heart! |
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VAS Member Rara Avis
since 2000-11-16
Posts 7450Oregon |
Tearfully, I make my reply. This is so touchingly tender. It has a powerful message delivered by angel wings. It is one the world should see. May I keep a copy and share with friends, Rosemary? |
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Irish Rose Member Patricius
since 2000-04-06
Posts 10263 |
Rosemary, I want you to know how much I appreciated this poem. It is such a moving expression of how things change and people also. They only see the outside of us, and if they could see your heart, believe me, they'd want to be inside of it! What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life. Walt Whitman |
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Marge Tindal 
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Rosemary~ So tenderly you touch hearts with a taste of reality. I send you such a hug for this piece and a fervent prayer that we all wake up and reach out. Love and - *Heart-Hugs* ~*Marge*~ ~*The pen of the poet never runs out of ink, as long as we breathe.*~ noles1@totcon.com |
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lucky Senior Member
since 2000-01-17
Posts 1601Idaho |
My Dearest Heart, You know how I feel about this... You know when I was driving down the freeway in the dead of winter in Colorado Springs and watched the police going along the rivers edge and throwing their sleeping bags in the river while they waited in soup lines only to return and find all they ever owned washed away. You remember when my friend Steve Saddler commited suicide. The poor thing is how their confined to the cities for food and hygiene. Many Churches offer showers and food but I've seen shower lines that stretch blocks. Then a mother with her children to finally get in a cold shower and get out and put on the same dirty cloths. The Republicans don't want them around, cost to much money. The Democrats arn't much better. I guess the way is to throw their things in the river and maybe they'll go away. Has Love Really Grown So Cold..? This seems to be an ever growing question of today. It has even come to the point now that Christians are worrying about how they can stop it, as if to be looking for a possible way to change it’s course. There are millions today that are seeing psychiatrist and social workers, expressing how lost and miserable they have become, and seemingly have nowhere, and no one to turn to. Just not to long ago I overheard some elderly women talking about a young woman from Queens New York, and how that a neighbor had come and knocked on her door and said she was lonely. The woman politely told her that she was very busy preparing her family some dinner. However, not thinking at all of her tone, she was short and blunt about it. Unfortunately, that very night that woman left and committed suicide. She said she felt awful the next day after reading it in the newspaper. While bring interviewed she turned abd yelled at her husband to shut up and threatened him, yelled at the kids to turn down the television...and turned back to the reporter with a collected smile. A friend (Stephen Llewellyn Sadler) of fifteen years who had always been very close to me and who had always helped this Church every year. Doing his best calling in life “a Chef” and cooking of a huge Thanksgiving dinner to feed the street people in Colorado Springs ever year. It had been the highlight of his life for many years. However he had had a drinking problem for years. For some strange reason that particular year the Church’s hierarchy had taken it upon themselves and decided he would not be cooking that year unless he quit his drinking. I was hurt very to my soul for him, November 23rd. which was just days after his birthday, which was on the 19th. that he spent in detox...he got out and took a 12 gauge shotgun and wrote a note and blew his brains out. Part of that eulogy he had wrote himself contained a poem that he himself wrote, it reads as follows: As we walk alone, looking at the ground Does anyone see us, in this cold, lonely town? The eyes that don’t see us, even tho’ they stare. A dumpster for dinner A bridge for a home A great crowed of people Yet we’re still all alone. So onward I travel, I wonder how far A curse born forever under a wondering star. Stephen Llewellyn Sadler Nov. 19th. 1955 - Nov. 23rd. 1995 You would have thought a “hard lesson” had been learned by the one’s at St. Mary’s Church who had made that decision that Steve would not be cooking that warm thanksgiving. But Nay, it seemed almost all of them had a justification for themselves that excused them from it all. I still know and remember a couple of women that quit their jobs, (as they also worked at the Detox in the Springs) quit that very same Church because of it. The biggest church in the city. I like to believe that he’s cooking... but on a much higher ground. What a spot for the Church hierarchy to be caught in. But somehow God had taken me from my grief of losing such a good friend that day and showed me of the time, when Christ “in His day” that the Judean hierarchy had been put in a similar position and they too had learned nothing from it. Have we grown calloused and cold..? I realize that they could have not known...but honestly, look at all the hearts God revealed that day. The Great Judge is surely at work. The lack of love today and the widespread immorality in this country alone, has been a grave, tragic state of affair. In the earlier years of this country of these United States a “civil” war killed hundreds of thousands, brother killed brother, father’s killed son’s...etc. Today, women can’t even walk the street at night for fear of being raped and killed and left on the side of a road or in a National “preserve” Park somewhere. In today’s news, (now yesterdays) in Rwanda hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered, often by their own “neighbors.” What’s really amazing is that for hundreds and hundreds of years the “Hutu and Tutsi [lived] together, intermarrying, not caring or not even knowing who was a Hutu and who was a Tutsi,” In those times and day’s they didn’t even have a care who was who. “Then something snapped,” somehow a “civil rivalry” sprang up and blossomed, and the killing began...etc. Are we awake to what’s really going on and who these are that are instigating these rivalries..? Just lately during “ethnic conflicts” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly part of Yugoslavia, over a million were forced from their homes and tens of thousands were killed. By whom..? Oh...my poor lamenting soul... Sadly enough, it was done by their very own “neighbors.” Similarly, Jews and Arabs in Israel live side by side, but many hate each other. The situation is the same with the Catholics and the Protestants in astoundingly growing numbers. Never before in history has the world been so lacking in “love thy neighbor.” The same goes in our own country with such trivial gropes as the Republicans and Democrats. Preachers, Ministers and Pastors in almost every Church are urging there congregations to pray for world peace. That is one prayer that’s not going to be answered in this day and time. For all who have taken the time to read... I thank you... This should be the bigest Presdential issue there could ever be. Did you hear about it..? Writing isn't just something I do, it's something I am. To write of feelings that touch all hearts in some manner is my delight. -Marge Tindal |
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Rosemary J. Gwaltney Senior Member
since 1999-08-26
Posts 997northern mountains, Idaho |
ethome - I'm going to go hunt up your poem - thank you for showing the caring heart you harbor there ... desperado - bless you for your compassion, and comprehension of what I was trying to express ... I had no idea how much worse it still is in Korea - though all through my childhood, my very poor parents sponsored a little girl (I always wanted a sister) I considered my sister, So Soon Koo. (Maybe not spelled right after all these years.) who had lived her life in an orphanage there because of the war. We sent packages, all my outgrown clothes (still nice), barrettes, hard candy, many combs, so she could share with all the little girls who got nothing ... my sister of my heart - the orphanage was so kind - once or twice a year they sent black and white photos of her wearing my clothes, and letters from her, thanking us so much, especially for being able to give to her friends. Imagine - being thrilled to give a gift of a comb, or a piece of hard candy! I miss her. Thanks for the memories, and the care you show toward your fellow-man. Martie - you are such a lady! Always a kind word, and always a kind heart! VAS - my eyes mist over because yours have - and I thank you for your care too. I have written like this before, and mostly received replies like "hey, they're useless refuse, why care about them?" A response that hurts almost as much as the subject at hand. Human beings who do not care. Of course you may share it! I am honored that you would ask! Irish Rose - Thank you so much for your comments! And your sweetness. By the way, I loved your signature! Marge Tindal - thank you my friend, for your soul that always cares for all the "underdogs" - the ones who touch my heart too! lucky - my darling husband - I know. You know. We know. Maybe we know too much, for being so helpless to help. But God is not helpless. We don't understand why He allows such things to be, but we know He can touch those that we care about, in His name, and pray for. I love you. [This message has been edited by Rosemary J. Gwaltney (edited 11-25-2000).] |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
These are tender words from a compassionate and caring heart...James |
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Rainydays Member
since 2000-10-21
Posts 324 |
Rosemary, what a moving poem and thread this is. What a difference could be made if we just would, our collective peoples, all of us. But in the meantime it is up to those of us who do care, who do understand, like you, to make the biggest difference we can possibly muster. Actions following our words around. Finding what we can do, now, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant. Nothing is insignificant when it results in one person touching another in comfort, in peace and in love. Thank you, really, is all I wanted to say. Rainydays |
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lucky Senior Member
since 2000-01-17
Posts 1601Idaho |
. [This message has been edited by lucky (edited 11-27-2000).] |
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Marge Tindal
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Rosemary~ 'And I can't help but care.' And, my friend ... so do I. *Heart-Hugs* ~*Marge*~ ~*The pen of the poet never runs out of ink, as long as we breathe.*~ noles1@totcon.com |
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Rosemary J. Gwaltney Senior Member
since 1999-08-26
Posts 997northern mountains, Idaho |
jmlee12345 - thank you for your care too, and kind comments. Rainydays - I deeply appreciate your thoughts and comments on this matter that means so much to me. Yes, I wish a solution could be found. Many people care. But the problem is so large. I agree, though, the expression of caring CAN make a difference, all by itself. lucky - I love you very dearly. Again, I'm so sorry for all the pain you have known, and wish so much you had never known it. Marge Tindal - thank you for your sweet comments. And I know you care. Thanks for that too. |
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Kethry Member Rara Avis
since 2000-07-29
Posts 9082Victoria Australia |
Rosemary, maybe we should practice world hug day at passions. Heaven knows there are enough of us together to throw our arms around the world. I am one voice and I am singing I am not alone... write on Kethry Why do yesterdays remain and todays pass by ...unnoticed? Rex E. Alford |
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