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~ 1 ~
You know I sat there in the dark,
In a hundred rooms; and in the park,
And slept beside the gray paved road,
With a sheet of frost my frozen load.
My belly burned from lack of food,
My shoes worn out were wet and crude,
While the speeding cars and trucks swept by,
Where I was lost; just me and I.
When the sun of morn did thaw the frost,
Revealing the footprints where I had crossed,
To find my way to a nearby field,
Where a cow to me its warm bed might yield,
For I did not from sweet heaven fall,
Clothed in a soft down feathered ball.
~ 2 ~
'Tis not the rich folk; the well to do,
That offer a hand that might help you,
'Tis only those who lack themselves,
Who offer the last crust from their shelves.
Yes I have been there; down and done,
Where a peanut is a dinner won,
Where no one cares and offer naught,
Except time for vagrancy if you're caught,
For being poor was a public crime,
In the "lucky country" of the time
When religious prejudice and racist hate,
By all who were different can still relate.
But I did not falter, my friends nor fall,
Though I'd be scarred forever from it all.
~ 3 ~
What do I know; not much my friend,
But I learned at least not to pretend,
To see things as they really are,
Not plug the hole with a twinkling star.
I saw them trade their "gins" for cash,
To buy their "plonk" and get some gnash,
And plead for payment for their toil,
While the white blokes raped their velvet spoil.
Yet they would share their crumbs with me,
Because in their hearts they still were free,
Despite the fact that they had no aid,
For they were as black as they were made,
And I was whiter than the snow,
Though I did not think that it would show.
~ 4 ~
Yes it is hard in a strangers land,
The ridicule the spite the threatening hand,
Where none will turn to help you up,
But will offer you a drink without a cup,
And laugh and laugh at all your pain,
Insult your homeland again, and again.
That while you strive to be one of them,
They scorn your efforts and condemn,
You for all your courage will and hope,
As you roll back down the despicable slope.
No birthday parties; no candles to blow,
No bubbling soda and presents to show
But now that I'd reached age sixteen,
I was made a man from all I'd seen.
~ 5 ~
What kept my mind from wrong or sin,
Though I mixed with people crude and grim,
And talked with prostitutes and their pimps,
In waterfront hovels owned by shrimps
Was simply that I knew wrong from right,
Regardless of my desperate plight,
And though I found the friendship great,
This was not meant to be my fate.
For I was better than these folk of wrongs
Who gathered here where they belonged,
For the sewer runs into the sea,
For a man who desires that he be free...
For none need grovel in the drain...
When 'tis often washed with cleansing rain
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