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Dan Flore: Homeless Poems

Not sure if this is what you're looking for; its a few decades old now!:

un-poet

un-slept un-died
un-lived un-cried
un-wisped un-waxing moon
un-walked un-silvered shore
un-traced trajectory of sound
un-imported light
un-talked un-listened
un-whispered breath
un-awed perception
un-imagined death
un-nuanced fact
un-harnessed paradox
un-accepted truth
un-thought love
un-erotic dream
un-remembered past
un-left alone un-teamed
un-healing wound
un-bleeding heart
un-shuffled illusion
un-established metaphor
un-dived sea un-echoed shadow
un-released un-borrowed
un-languaged thought
un-tomorrowed
un-joyed embrace
un-profound un-statement
un-tapping foot to un-reverberating beat
un-stilled un-mind
un-think un-eat
un-homed
un-street
un-
 
Jay Dougherty said:
LOL. No worries. I've blasted it all over facebook, at least those places that will still have me.

Yeah, it's fun to be doing this stuff again. As I get ever closer to retirement, I figure I may as well devote myself again to publishing into the great void.
Click to expand...

i thought that OAF also had an Instagram account
perhaps give that a try too
 
@Jay Dougherty

my poem Impressions is the first that comes to mind


Impressions


The zombies are up early, they jog
posiblemente pilled to the hilt
filled with faith
in the engine room

Some of us swim in spring water
access to the pool used to be free, then it cost 3, then 5 now 9
someone at city hall knows of the living
from 5 before the sun rises to 8
it’s free

The pecan trees don’t care, poetry shouldn’t
either

A guy works hard
for an application, inhales seven kilotons of weed
outside his blinders he hears very little
someone on the lawn is scratching the surface of meditation

In the engine room rust and vacancy fill
the nostrils

Almost every single person at the pool is a businessman, business with a penis, business with
a vagina and all the other businessmen
rushing along
wagging a finger
at our fathers

Homelessness is rampant, the ex that like the newborn squirrel on the pavement - evicted
from the branch or the apartment
by higher authority
now dragging a beat up suitcase on seventh street

Next stop robert t martinez jr
street
faster is the only speed
the sun rises over the highest residential building west of the Mississippi




And also 'the tour bus'


the tour bus


from the shade
the street looks less filthy
the toothless guy at the bus stop
is enjoying the sun
to the extent he still finds enjoyment
the people are dressed horrifically
anything you find put it on
plastic fabric made in china
urged by demand
i want money for coffee in the shade
the beggar drinks bad alcohol
adele has two trillion views
time is as unkind as it always was
back when fuckers lived in the forest
lost teeth at nineteen
and buddha gave out wisdom
in an already crowded india
while his bloated abdomen inflated




(That last line 'while his bloated abdomen inflated' could either be there or it could be edited out? perhaps that's personal / unnecessarily harsh, perhaps it fits with the rest?)
 
@Jay Dougherty

Summer’s Syllabus.png
 
@Jay Dougherty, not sure if these two fit what you're looking for. Wrote these two or three years ago.



Street Girl

You enter McDonald’s on that Brooklyn street corner
of Flatbush Ave. I’m sitting at a table. My meal
is done. An opened book next to my tray. Songs play
in the airwaves. Your hair loosed and unkempt.

Gray jacket puffs around your slim abdomen—tied
with three small ropes. Something about your eyes show
innocence blended with shamelessness. Two sisters
maybe in their fifties, seated by a window three tables
away, call you. You approach them, palm extended.
They ask you to loosen the ropes and show them what
you have in your jacket. I see curiosity in your face,
but you comply. You take out a roll of toilet paper
from one side, and more restroom items from the other.
The two women look at each other and began to chat
with soft laughs. In your disgust, you turn from their
table and walk to other people, asking for ‘a quarter
or a dollar’. You come to me. I answer ‘sorry,

I don’t have a quarter’. You walk toward the exit and
back to the streets. I lied when said I didn’t have a quarter.
My hands were too heavy to lift themselves and reach
my back pocket. Saying ‘sorry’ seemed convenient.
I then told myself I’d write about you. You’re a nobody,
and ‘nobodies’ need a platform. Liars too, need consolation.





Fortification of Cardboard


Behind a fortification of
cardboard you sleep
covered by white, dusty blanket
on concrete in front of a
closed Bronx store
on 3rd Ave.

Wonder how you slept
last night hearing trains screech
within each hour on the rails
below you. Cars
on the road drive by
honking,

pedestrians walking up
and down the congested
walkways and intersection.
Can’t imagine cold nights
and rainy days, thieves
heartless bastards
taking advantage.

I turn away needing
to reclaim my
world suspended
in passing.
 
Loved all those selections Dan. They're sad in a friendly and likable way. Reminds me of the character Eyeore and one of my favorite quotes by him "thanks for noticing me".
 
silent lotus said:
Jay

will you be doing these only as Ebooks ?

or pocket sized paperbacks too ?


i have a friend who publishes mini origami booklets
that are download
self print & fold

https://www.origamipoems.com/


there's even a silent lotus from 9 years ago

https://www.origamipoems.com/poets/194-silent-lotus


`
Click to expand...

I'd love to do print. I just haven't had time to look into it, really. I do have some unused ISBNs from Bowker and need to start publishing something so that I can use them up.
 
Great contributions by everyone. Just downloaded the file and looking forward to reading!

Here is my sole contribution, if I may:

safe harbor

outside a grocery store, at the corner of the street,
a hunched-over woman, far older than her years,
was screaming to a man on the other side who,
barely standing, was swaying back and forth
like a sickly tree in the wind

in spite of their voices sounding like curses,
they seemed to be conversing; all the while
blissfully oblivious to this other world
they were mere ghosts in

not able to make out what they were saying,
I thought maybe they were discussing
where to score next, or how much cash
they can scrape together, or who od'd last night,

or even where they could steer their sinking ships to;
to some safe harbor
​
 
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