Tags
compassion, emotion, empathy, generosity, loving kindness, mankind, panhandling, philosophy, spiritual, unconditional love
.
So, I’m panning
in my usual spot.
This suit walks by —
in passing he says,
“Get a job!”
“Hire me!” I say.
“Take a shower,” he says.
“I may sleep outside,
that doesn’t mean
I don’t wash —
I wash all over.”
“Hey,” I say,
“if you’re so successful,
why do you look
so unhappy?
“I’ve made the price
of my bottle.
I’ve got some smokes,
a little pot.
“Me, I’m the happiest guy alive.”
.
Dennis Cardiff 
I enjoyed your poems. The one thing that I like the most is how you take a simple thing, like a cigarette, and give it a place in your life; it is THERE with you completing the sense of living. Society doesn’t want us to find joy on cigarettes or marihuana, so we don’t speak about that ‘experience’. You can talk about a cigarette as sensibly as about a Woodpecker ( I hope Woodpeckers don’t feel offended by putting them next to cigarettes).
I liked your other two blogs too. I will link this one and the one with your art to my blog. Thanks for stopping by my place.
Lourdes
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Hi Lourdes, cigarettes, sherry and marihuana seem important to homeless people. Mental illness plays a part in this as well. I don’t agree with their choices, but they seem remarkably happy. Everything they own fits in a back pack. It goes where they go.
Cheers,
Dennis
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Some beautiful stuff going on over here in this blog! Cheers to the power of lovely words and compassion. Keep up the great work! 🙂
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Thanks for your kind words. They are much appreciated.
Cheers,
Dennis
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Incidentally when I speak of humanitarian issues I believe there’s a vast array of them and not only homelessness, poverty, disabilities or mental illness. I just get annoyed at how society puts the blinkers on whenever something uncomfortable to us or something we don’t understand so well appears before us. It would probably open my own eyes quite a lot too. That’s why I’d like to do that.
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Could it be the less you have the more you appreciate what you do have? The more you have the more you take it for granted?
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I think that is exactly the case. Many of my friends have only what they can carry in a pack sack. In winter it means also carrying a sleeping bag, since many of them sleep outside.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
Cheers,
Dennis
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So how did you come to be involved do you work in helping the homeless as a day job or do you do this purely out of a caring and being bothered enough? As when I read your blogs about your friends it sounds like either or both of those.
There’s a part of me would like to do something with my life where I could help others or raise awareness for stuff I’ve been through in the past myself. Though fortunately I didn’t quite end up on the street myself, I had a history where drugs and alcohol became my life for a while…now I have a mental health condition which is bipolar depression and psychosis.
A lot of the time I fear those with mental health conditions or disabilities slide through the net and wind up on the street too not getting the help and support they need. MY passion these days is photography and I’d like to pursue it as a career one day. Though I wonder if there are ways of making it a useful career for raising humanitarian causes. I fear becoming a care worker might be out of the question when I’m ill myself and prone to mood swings though…That doesn’t mean I don’t care you know?
Be interested to hear your thoughts anyway.
I’ll certainly be back here to read some more.
Hayley
x
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“Hire me!” absolutely the best comeback line. How many people have rolled out the ‘get a job’ cliche? Great words.
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Yes, that cliche is all too common, unfortunately, most of these people are unemployable. It’s hard to appear presentable if you have slept behind a dumpster. A resume with no street address or telephone number would be rejected immediately.
I love your poetry.
Cheers,
Dennis
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I am/was already following the Gotta Find A Home Blog and then discovered you also had your own poetry blog besides. The cliche however is like rubbing salt into open wounds in a lot of cases, I suppose though it’s easy to speak thoughtlessly when you have it good yourself. It’s easy for things to fall through though and I wonder how those people who are more fortunate would cope if they fell on hard times themselves. Life on the streets is tough if you’re not wise to the ways of the streets, whether you end up living there yourself or not I’ve a lot of respect for those who have little to no other choice for keeping on going the best they can with so little. Winter is no doubt the most horrendous thing I can imagine. Keeping warm, a simple luxury you’d think not always so easily achieved, very dangerous if you’re out on the street with no place to go. I try to imagine walking in even the pouring rain looking for whatever shelter is available constantly being moved on as these men and women are, and yeah some of them are just kids, and I wonder then how some high flying suited and polished booted person might cope. Probably wouldn’t last 10 minutes in the lifestyle before cracking up… It’s tough. I’ve had a fair bit of hard luck in my time and come dangerously close to ending up there myself though fortunately I didn’t. Got mixed up with the wrong crowd. I was only fortunate in that I had a roof over my head for a while, but the roof over your head means a lot when there’s nothing much else there for you. I appreciate greatly therefore that you highlight these people and their plight. Give voice to the all too easily dismissed.
Hayley
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Beautiful thank you.
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Hi Tersia, this is an experience I had with Andre while he was panning on the street. I had to edit it for length, because he never stops talking. It was a beautiful experience, if for no other reason than to see people smile at Andre’s humor.
Cheers,
Dennis
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they’re just appreciative of the miniscule !
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a wonderful thought that we create our own happiness…joy
no one can be either for us…it is within us…and only we know when we feel it
Hope things are well in your part of the world Dennis…
Take Care…
)0(
maryrose
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My homeless friends are the happiest people that I’ve ever met. This poem is about a conversation I heard, sitting on the sidewalk beside Andre, while he was panhandling. It was a great experience.
Cheers,
Dennis
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Love this one Dennis – happiness is relative. 🙂
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It truly is Jade.
Cheers,
Dennis
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