Nest For Invisible


I beg for a dollar, but your pocket  is cold.
The concrete carves a nest for invisible to hatch.

You don’t like the view from your window,
the trash is covering manicured grass.
I have skin and bone, a rusty heart, two degrees in math,
but I am lower than the pigeons shit-bombing your trees.

You roll me in assumptions, plastic bag me loser,
and fall into your smart phone shuffling selfies until
you have enough Photoshop to impress with a lie.

Never a question, never a word… I’m a paper bird
dressed in second hand waiting to be recycled.
It’s hard to learn how to fly in a sky made of concrete.

©Susie Clevenger 2017

#NaPoWriMo2017

 Real Toads ~ Invisible





Comments

Paul John Dear said…
The homeless sadly are normalised to most eyes. There is no tradegy there which is the real tradegy. Fortuntely there are those that do.
April 14, 2017 at 8:18 AM
Therisa's World said…
Susie, your poem reminds me, of my own time, in a women homeless shelter, in Toronto. Should we gather around the front stoop, a minute, before the doors open up, for the evening, the shelter would get phone calls, saying we're were disturbing the peace, from nearby condos, several stories up, from the road. Like we're trash that they tolerated, despite the fact, the shelter was there first, before the condos.
April 14, 2017 at 9:55 AM
✿ said…
This is an AMAZING poem. There's no way your message could be misunderstood.

What math degrees do you have? That fascinates me. Do you use them? Talk to me in "Math"!
April 14, 2017 at 9:56 AM
Kerry O'Connor said…
Wow, Susie! You knocked this out the ballpark!
April 14, 2017 at 10:24 AM
Sanaa Rizvi said…
My goodness this is good!!
April 14, 2017 at 12:29 PM
Jim said…
It's a hard place to be, on the concrete. I feel sorry for hem, there are so many. The one's with the dog I really feel. But the dogs don't know any better.
p.s. Generally I don't take the author as being tied to the writer, but do you have two degrees in math as Moxie asked? I have a very full math minor, through differential equations and then other regular or advanced math. Nine courses, 27 hours, at least. Possibly one more.
..
April 14, 2017 at 4:47 PM
De Jackson said…
OH, these verbs:
You roll me in assumptions, plastic bag me loser

So good.
April 14, 2017 at 9:27 PM
grapeling said…
very effective metaphor ~
April 14, 2017 at 9:38 PM
Rosemary Nissen-Wade said…
Wow, powerful and arresting words, and strong message.
April 15, 2017 at 2:29 AM
Marian said…
This is so truthy, and it shines a light on the impulse inside us all, or many of us anyway, to look away because it is so much easier.
Love your writing as always, Susie.
April 15, 2017 at 10:02 AM
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