Lost in the Land of Plenty
I live in a welfare hotel
and when the electricity
gets shut off again
in the room provided
by Homeless Services,
without the heater,
even with blankets,
it’s freezing cold.
I hurry to dress
so I won’t miss the bus
that will take me to school,
even though I hate it,
’cause they call me names
and make me sit in the back
with the other homeless kids.
But I’ll try to ignore
how the teacher treats us,
how the other kids treat us,
because I’ll be warm.
Bureaucratic Priorities
The mayor of New York proposed
a basic five-year action plan
to end chronic homelessness,
which so far has managed
to put more families on the street.
The city spends our tax money
while innocent children suffer
terrible horrors on the street,
exposed to crime and violence
and the city keeps counting,
instead of finding solutions
for children cruelly abandoned
by the richest city in the world.
The Counting of the Homeless
Instead of offering
sufficient services
to address the problems
of a specific group
removed from the normal haunts
of alienating society,
whether from dysfunction,
or dire calamity
such as fire, or loss of job,
the money expended
in counting the homeless
should be used
to provide shelter.
