Standing There Poem by Ronald Speight

Standing there with no where to go
No home to live in, maintain
He smells of urine and burned tobacco
With a steady flow of liquor
He tells stories of days past
As people laugh and he thinks
A new friend is made
He doesn’t realize
They were only there for a laugh
Not for the man behind the bottle
Trapped in smoke as people walk past
Dropping change in his cup
Then suddenly they’re a humanitarian
Loneliness is the cause for his pain
So he works his hardest just for a laugh a dream
But when the laughs end the people gone
They don’t see him out
There on that corner freezing at night
Standing there…