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In The Sanctuary Of My Head

The Broken-Winged Birds and People (re-edited 4/5/2323 3:03PM PST) (re-edited 11:14am PST 2/23/2023)

The Hell Of Winter (re-edited 4:27pm PST 3/9/2023)

My Grey Haired Love...La La Lullaby , La La Lullaby My Love

THE HEART IS AN ORGAN ON FIRE



When Mr. Bemish Lost His Last Good Pair of Glasses

Kathy Brown Kathy Brown

Something Not Quite Right About Here (Vortex) re-edited 1/26/2023

THE COOL TILES BENEATH MY FEET REMIND ME

The Way Of The Crow

DO YOU TURN THE LIGHTS SO YOU CAN SLEEP?

The Springtime Shadows Play Games Upon The Wall

CHRONICLER OF DREAMS

YET ANOTHER ANTI-POETRY POEM ( re-edited 11/2/2022)

You Do As You Please 8/17/2005 found poem, readjusted 6/20/22

HERE WE SIT AT OUR TABLE 2/19/2022

Much Better Than This ( A Conversation With The Universe)

The Straight Story (What Happens When The Writer Inserts You Into Her Story)

THE TIDE CALLED LONELINESS

A Girl Always Leaning Forward Looking for A Breeze

Entanglements

Have You Ever... (DECEMBER 4/2021)

Appetites

How I Still Love You

The Smile Which Eludes @

He Says To Me, I Think Too Much (and hence dream too much as well)

When You Learn Who You Really Are And What Is...

Anti-Poem Number Three 8/2/2022 Or, A Poem Your Proper Mother Wouldn't Write

Breathing On My Own

A Girl Is More Than a Beautiful Box re-edited 10:15pm PST 1/31/22

I LOVE YOU ALWAYS ANYWAY AND INSTEAD

Talk To Me In The Dark 7/8/2022

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Its Their Problem


they claim
how there's a magical solution
to the problem
called homelessness

they lie
and waste words
like bad candy
they have a warm bed
so its all Jim-dandy
unless you've never been there
then why should you care?
fancy words are free
like the air
then dissipate
into nothingness
after the election

the Nextdoor Neighborhood chatterers
are all in an uproar
the houseless campers
are much too close to their doors
they believe...
maybe the homeless would be
more comfortable
indoors
in jail
out of sight
so much better
than homeless people
given license to be
simply "Human"

sometimes
it takes great unrest inside to write
like when I'm up during
the dark of night
and the words come
in a storm full of rage
then fill up my mind
like an unwinding page...
with volumes of volumes

makes me wish
I could get all of it quickly down
when I expel vitriol
I feel lighter
still the words in my head go on and on
and most days I find them
waiting impatiently pacing
in my head for me
in the morning

there's nothing wrong
with anger
sometimes it needs to leave its post
run off with fists flying
but this time I'm giving myself steel-toed boots
in the form of righteous words

I'm older now
a bit more than fed up
I see so many of my contemporaries
though above ground,
slowly dying
some rot in  the dumpt
they've become the scum to be scrubbed away,
blight and blemishes
the target of city hall's and
society's expedient erasure of
its own troubling reflection

here in Portland
when it rains
like it does
it washes them down
some nearly drown
every time I'm downtown
I nearly drown too in the swill of it
seeing the Hell of it

I see these lost ones
struggling
wholly visible
so many of them deliberately
ignored
its a disgusting disgrace
how they're literally stepped on and over
lives without a face

the old ones
the poorest of the poor
the rattled and mentally ill
have been deliberately
drop-kicked out-of-doors
and into
their landing place...
which no one
with any other choice
would dwell

its as if
they never had a life
or a place
of their own
the sidewalk from which
they are banned from sitting or lying on
their home

downtown is transformed into
one repetitive disturbing
dystopic movie scene
much like the one from Jesus Christ Superstar
where the those who needed healing
over-whelm God
and He falters

I see today how
Kinder Ones do what they can
while the walk through the throng
sometimes becoming overwhelmed
by the dire need for healing
the asking, the begging, the appealing
the over-abundance of...
please, please, please
would you help me?

tents and tarps on the street
sleeping on concrete
when they can live in
pretended houses
that will never have doors
while being continuously
rousted by the man

broken down
and stinking
exhausted
lost-thinking
hungry
wretched
and mostly, unforgivably alone

while the tossed
dwell on the sidewalks
we, the others, ride by the train
onwards toward warm homes
the riders having no insight into their
complicit ignorance
obstinate indifference
HOW they are deliberately not seeing
distracting themselves with canned-music
and little games on their cellphones

I overheard
a twenty-something telling her wide-eyed friends
from another city
just keep your head down
and you'll be safer then..
keep your eyes on your phones
but your awareness
tuned in on your purses and wallets
they're a nuisance, alright
but all big cities like this have got 'em
don't look at "THEM...."

the poor
the homeless
the mentally ill
the doomed
they're a problem
be unmoved
its their problem.



legal copyright for this poem/work/rant 6/8/2018 *:49AM
time/date stamped and legally copyrighted
and also for this writer Melissa A Howells
and also for this legally copyrighted site title:
Meloo Straight From Her Tilt-a-World

re-edited for strength of metaphor and clarity
10:40AM June 12, 2018/legal copyright for this poem/work/rant
and also for this writer Melissa A. Howells
and also for this LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE:
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD





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