Street Song
‘Brother can you spare a dime?’
Symphonies of well-rehearsed lines
by unlucky men
ring out in discordant harmonies toward heaven,
a shoe shine, and peddlers shuffling wares
lost cares drift through the city like smog
middle-aged women hanging out of tenement widows
wondering when husbands are coming home
the hustlers and bustlers trying to two talk their way into
a dollar from a dime
beggars and bottles of wine, the immigrants sweeping the stoops
of corner stores, children with no place
eating stolen bread
in some run down shack’s deteriorating doorway
and it’s only the middle of the day
when night comes, and sunlight creeps no more,
the melancholy song of suffering
stars, crosshairs reflecting loneliness,
grown men drowning in half empty bottles,
to momentarily escape life’s futileness
pain becoming both ceiling and floor
but the song is not all sorrow
the voices don’t always have grief
downtrodden, belittled, ignored in the least
the streets keep singing
the song goes on
at least until tomorrow
‘Brother can you spare a dime?’
Symphonies of well-rehearsed lines
by unlucky men
ring out in discordant harmonies toward heaven,
a shoe shine, and peddlers shuffling wares
lost cares drift through the city like smog
middle-aged women hanging out of tenement widows
wondering when husbands are coming home
the hustlers and bustlers trying to two talk their way into
a dollar from a dime
beggars and bottles of wine, the immigrants sweeping the stoops
of corner stores, children with no place
eating stolen bread
in some run down shack’s deteriorating doorway
and it’s only the middle of the day
when night comes, and sunlight creeps no more,
the melancholy song of suffering
stars, crosshairs reflecting loneliness,
grown men drowning in half empty bottles,
to momentarily escape life’s futileness
pain becoming both ceiling and floor
but the song is not all sorrow
the voices don’t always have grief
downtrodden, belittled, ignored in the least
the streets keep singing
the song goes on
at least until tomorrow