We have been talking about and thinking about the homeless over the last few weeks. One member told us one of her classmates is homeless and at one point she gave her homeless classmate some clothes.

Yesterday another member spoke of how there are so many kinds of homeless people. Folks caught in so many different kinds of situations. We've been wondering what can be done for the homeless, what's life like for them, what those better off can and should do to help. We've heard that it is a growing problem in New York City and perhaps the nation.

Here is a link for help and services for the homeless: The Street Sheets. A special thanks to library investigator Mark Hamilton for this.

Not to flash vocabulary but I learned a new word for homelessness —penury —It really means destitute or extremely poor. Try dropping that in a sentence as the Writers' Club@Columbus drops some poetry and monologues in support of those less fortunate.

God bless you
But you spare nothing
My back hurts
From pushing my home
Nothing to eat
I ask for spare change
God bless you
But you spare nothing
—Sam Aquino

Why do people judge?
I’m not crazy
I’m not sick
I’m just lost
It isn’t wrong to look in the trash for something to eat
or wear
when you have nothing
Don’t they know that the only ones sick are they
by thinking of me like some kind of demon.
—Elianny Moronta

I’m walking with my life in my hands
My neighborhood is my shopping cart
I walk to my own schedule
I watch the lines on TV
I’m friendly in an unfriendly street
That rhymes – there’s too much crime
I have to be careful now
You wonder how I eat?
Who I talk to?
Who I know?
My friend is my cart
My friend is my shoes
I have no mother
I have no wife
My home is the outside of a building
I talk to the birds
Chirp chirp
Look at my crate
I eat raw eggs
—Rodger Taylor

I often hear people saying “Look at that man! He has to be crazy to go around the streets like that!” Some kids tell their mothers that they want to help me, and all that they reply is “don’t get closer, he’s gonna get you sick.” Don’t they know that the only ones sick here are them thinking like that? Sleeping in the hard path of the streets is not very comfortable. If I could only get out of this all messed up world it would be better. It’d be a better world for me. I just wish they could see inside my soul, and they will see the beautiful and kind person I can be.
—Elianny Moronta

Although my body dies in hunger
My soul is a fighter
My mind must will away all ills
—Lenny Collado

A S T O R Y O F A H O U S E

Skies slowly turn grey
home for those without inside
home beaten with time
—Elianny Moronta

Winds blow through
And come out wounded
Deep breath, sigh
—Lenny Collado

Shelter none, old feet
Wind beats tree windowless
On dead graffiti
—Rodger Taylor

My old house
Where my family used to live
Now sad is all I feel here
—Bryan Morales