Walking an endless road, more poetry

Oh, my bounding repeating legs,

The soles of my feet are aching.

My limbs are so disagreeable today.

I walk until I am breaking.

I walked for miles through this lonely town,

I walked to this table of food.

Oh, give me this orange and this bowl of soup.

And help me find a bed.

The spongy bread they gave to me

With rancid butter bitter to taste.

I swallow the whole of it hard and fast,

And let it sour my emptiness.

With eyes swollen and large,

And leg muscles weary and tired under my trousers.

I fight to take another step

And find a resting place I need.

My legs and feet are cinder blocks

My homeless arms are swaying low.

I tell them to move

But, they cannot.

I drag them all so low.

Both feet now hesitate.

I am bleeding in the cold.

I once was a church goer

with clean socks and pants,

and polished shoes that shined.

My hands are now cracked from the wind,

These torn shoes are not even mine.

Tell this winter wind that pushes at my back

That I was once a man.

Now, I curl in a crumpled mess,

With a bag of burden load.

Here I sleep on the earth's old loam.

Exhaustion surrenders me to the cold.

Let me return to the bed I once knew

In the home that I did own.

White curtains blowing in the upstairs window.

The backdraft pulls them against the screen.

The hall cast of shadows

With sunlight streaming in,

Pouring through the glass.

Ah, this room of mine!

Let me rejoice that I'm here!

So quiet, and so peaceful.

I rest my eyes and breath in.

Bound tensions release

I exhale

To the sound of a distant lawn mower

And the faint smell of a hot grill.

My cares gone forever

No worries to haunt my peace.

I drink one more toast to myself

And gently fall asleep.

I wrote this poem to remind my readers of the homeless human beings who have died on our dirty streets alone and hungry. No one should have to live like this.

By Joanne Kathleen Farrell

Author and political activist

Find me on Reddit, Stumble Upon, Digg, Myspace, Google+, and Facebook