Street Spirit July 2005

Poems and Rain Lane Photographs

Poem 1: People's Park in Spite of Everything | Poem 2: The Timeless People | Poem 3: I Saw Sunshine | Poem 4: That Poor Creature

Rain Lane photographs homeless people in Santa Monica and Skid Row, Los Angeles.

People's Park, in Spite of Everything

by Julia Vinograd

There are fights over free box clothes
which can be sold and
are grabbed like piles of pirate loot.
Sometimes the box burns down;
who else wears clothes that start fires?
Who else glows in the dark?
Does the FBI have secret agents
drawing shadows of rose petals and
transcribing mutters of sleeping drunks
in case there's plans in code
for an attack on the mirror?
Here are sunflowers to steal our
backpacks and music to steal our toes.
Weddings and memorials and beer cans
opening under the sun like mushrooms.
Some of us play at vampires but sell
our own blood at the end of the month.
Some of us pose for unwanted posters
but that's just our day job.  We lie
about the past and move about enough
to block anyone's view of the future.
So what?
This is the place
of "once upon a time."

The Timeless People

by Husayn Sayfuddiyn

What do you see?
What memories?
In the poor's haggard, time-worn faces
In the wild eyes seeking friendly places
Safe from the demand of dollar bills
that can't be earned
Framed in tentative smiles that still
Mock their hardship's doleful refrain
The vagabonds walk in unmeasured steps
in a circle of desperate hope
Their woeful sighs lost in the errant, timeless night
doomed to haunt the urban jungle's neon nights
Seeking food and shelter and finding blight
The specters of menace in dark, shadowed streets
The timeless walk without rest or sleep
Living without Time to mark the careless hours
In the shadows of the mocking Ivory Towers
Just night and day mark their goalless trek
Their unmarked courses seeking places to rest
Perhaps in a empty lot's rusting wreck
To awake and perhaps hoping not to
Knowing that Time they've hoped to, has an end too.

I Saw Sunshine

by Deirdre Evans

I saw Sunshine
in a Street Spirit photograph
Tears shivered in her
large black eyes
She was being rousted
with a handsome man
The caption said
they were being harassed
while grieving
for a newly dead friend
They were not being given
time to mourn
I saw Sunshine
She looked the same
as she had
so long ago
Twenty five years ago
when she lived with
her husband and son
in Earth People's Park
A commune of artists,
scientists, transients
and those who walked
but were wounded
But Sunshine was always
as bright and joyous
as her name
She always had a smile
and a kind word for everyone
I saw Sunshine
about ten years ago
at the Ashby Flea Market
She was smiling
as always
A golden glitter
surrounded her head
like a halo glowing
in a medieval painting
Her long black hair
fell down her back
flowed over her shoulders
Tall, slim, a sliver of Joy
in a dim gray world
I saw Sunshine
in a picture
in the Street Spirit
A flashback to a
more optimistic time
She looked the same
She was still smiling
through a mist of tears
I saw Sunshine and
Hope was there
glistening through
sorrow and suffering
I saw Sunshine
still lighting the darkness
with a smile

That Poor Creature

by Holman Monell

That poor creature bedded down
for the night in that doorway there
no place to call home, this the home,
the doorway to nowhere and everywhere
you could know how dreadful life
can sometimes be
how cruel circumstances can be at times
at times like these. What shall we do
we see and do not see, hear and not hear
crimes again (a personal humanity)
are here charged against the race of man
now, have a beer

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