Seamy Side of the Street, a series

Working Girl

With her Crayola smile of
Geranium Lake bleeding
onto her pearly-whites she stands
on Fourth and Minton,
that's the heart of her beat.

Black ‘n white striped hot pants
painted on over fishnet and scent,
she bends and peers then scowls
and sneers as the car pulls away
hastily.

It's too cold for comfort, shorts
and sequins that magnify her shivering
but, shit, she looks a million with her
Pretty Woman wig and her geranium stained lips.

It's not only the cold giving her
the shakes, some trick will like
what he sees and pull over sooner
or later, then she'll get to stop trembling
at least until tomorrow.


Gimme Shelter

The palette beside mine
is too close, the dude mumbles
in his sleep between snores.
The mattresses under me is
thin but it's warm and dry
and softer'n any sidewalk
or park bench.

We're all men,
all colours from
all walks of life and
all in need of sanctuary
of one kind or another.

Each shelter is different,
different rules,
different welcomes and
different cliental.
Some allow pets,
some the carts fellahs use,
some serve food –
those have line-ups
round the block starting to snake
hours before feedin' time.

Mostly it's sullen silence,
men wrapped in worry or
hung-over with no desire
to share. Other nights chat
starts up, hard-life stories
from the fallen high-fliers
or anecdotes that gets us all
guffawin' like seals. Those
are the good times until dark
brings sleep along with the
dreams, seldom sweet.


Life a La Cart

Mine's retro, small metal grid so
stuff don't fall through so much.
I like that, lost too many toothbrushes
and skinny stuff before I went retro.
There's no tray underneath like
with the newer ones, I have to curb
my hoarding instinct. The wheels
squeak now but it's a cheerful
squeak like singing, kinda. Sometimes
we whistle a duet, makes people smile
as we pass which is better'n being invisible.
Carts are premium now most lots chain ‘em
so I keep my eye on Clarabelle,
that's what I call her. My dad always named
our cars when we were kids, so I'm
just keeping up the tradition.


Candy Man

I suck e‘m in and spit ‘em out.
I'm a one man sweet dispenser,
no overheads or underlings.
Make sure the stuff's pure
Colombian ferried by frightened
fools for more money than
they deserve for not sweating
under pressure. Guaranteed
no cut-in talc, chalk or powdered
milk. Word gets out where the
bad stuff comes from,
I don't need hostility. Whether
cokeheads chase the dragon or
snort lines off their crystal tables
makes no mind to me as long as
the paper's clean and green and
keeps coming, I got bills to pay.


Handout

It's so easy to walk by
silently saying "get a job"
and thinking "oh sure! I'm
going to foot your next fix."

But what if we knew them,
thought of their mothers, siblings,
kids? What if they haven't eaten since
the night before last? Perhaps it's
a string of bad luck that finds them
lower than ever before, no fault of
theirs, the recession, cut-backs,
"progress".

This one was a field operator
on the oil patch, N. Dakota
until The Collapse and Saudi greed.
Here's an addict, yep, he's a user
but only since that one hit at a frat
party in '85, instant bondage. The
fifty-ish woman with her hand out
is only twenty-five with two girls
in care and her man doing ten. She's
looking for bus fare to get to ‘frisco
to see her kids.

And it's not just big cities
that spawn the walking
wounded, they're in Littleville all
over the world just in need of a
little luck and a friendly face.


Another Bloody Busker

Accepted to Julliard,
at nineteen and change,
"promising" they said.
Stars in my eyes,
stars on my mind.
One night's careless
acceptance of a ride
in a drunk's car with
three others. Waking
up with a shattered
spine but the others
didn't wake up at all.
Constant pain, short term
work with music my
only salve so I share,
here in the ticket halls of
Baker Street or Barbican
where commuters chase
connections . Most days
my violin case yields
as much as I need
and my needs are small.


Corruption

From the bleak streets of downtown
to the back alleys behind bars and
businesses, reeking of rot of all kinds,
we come spilling out like the spoiled
bok choy and bananas.

The disappointed, the disenfranchised,
the addicts and gamblers. Losers in love
and losers in life all drawn like night-fliers
to an irresistible light.

Huddled numbers in empty lots
and underpasses passing the time, each
of their own choice. Some smoking,
joking aside, some singing drunken
ditties from distant infancy and some
holding out hope that tomorrow a good
thing will happen.