Downtown Poem by John Calvin Cochrane

Downtown


The view from the crowded
bus full of people displaced
is of dirt-ridden paths in destruct.
From where and why here do they come?
It does not appear for the good intent
of humanity to ease the frailty.

Are we all going anywhere really?
Pondering, I gaze into a scratched mosaic.
Sheltered squalor crumbles down
in a heap of disparity as
the forgotten last few peer out
of the piled rubble and wreckage.

Homeless and cold move into dark
circles under eyes of sleepless, drug
induced nights of endurance, in the
fight against stormy winter demise.
Dignity fights for a peek at tomorrow.

What will become of me running
in my now ragged shoes?
Although my eyes would too see
the significant splendor of sunrise,
or even appreciate the rain.
a bath before I don my tattered warmth.

For who is anyone to know how
or what I am to arrive at,
when this voyage ends?
As the bus driver speaks
the stops called out loudly.
People shuffle through this line
when it’s time.

Off through and into the colorful array
for this is life.
And the transfer has expired.
So life for some, is only
one way?
Or so they say.

John Cochrane