Disturbance

As I write, there is a noisy, messy woman tearing agitatedly through her homeless bag.

I want to take her photograph ... I want to steal her bag and take time sifting through the contents:  How did she become this way?  Where did these belongings come from?  Why are they of enough sentiment to her (tethered to a better time?) ... so she wrestles and tears through them, agitatedly?

Hopeful still, she wakes each day ... maybe prays, finds some comfort, a warm cup of dignity ...

I steal her soul ... but it's not exploitation.

"Do Something", ©Jeff Glovsky

New York is Homeless

(not the photo poem)

"Discarded (Disposable City)", ©Jeff Glovsky

In the "city that never sleeps", there are dozens of new and relatively (competitively) inexpensive hotels which have sprung up - off side streets, on beaten paths, occasionally right next door to each other (?) ... housing tourists and businesspeople who affordably, comfortably, happily sleep each night.

Off side streets, on beaten paths surrounding these hotel grounds, are less happy, less comfortable human beings.  Some are squirming ... some sleep; some are fake, but some desperate: loudly/quietly affording (afforded) nothing.

It's easy to take pictures and "share" their stories:  from the comfort of your kitchen ... bed, desk, home office ... Steaming coffee at hand, you stream what you wish folks to think of their lives.  But what you wish, or what's actually happened to them, matters nicht - the mistakes, missteps, hopes once, dashed dreams ... these aren't "inspiring";

and you propping up, prompting smiles for your smart phone ... encouraging the marginalized to relive their hopes once, their dashed dreams ... only steals from them dignities which might remain.

May things remain to be seen as they are, daily basis:  the struggling discomforts, the forgotten, discarded ... so that underlying problems become addressed.

Redressed.

"Out Reach", ©Jeff Glovsky