The Rough Sleeper

by M.G. Warenycia

Hasteful wading through Yonge Street’s human clutter

Attention seized by a wailing stutter

Issuing from a reeking gutter

Where, ‘mid amorphous heaps of besotted rags,

Empty bottles, bloated shopping bags,

And a cup where, occasionally, a guilt-struck mind

Hath left behind

The change so sought that changes naught,

There, far advanced on the road to perdition,

Lies Mr. Wendal, Canadian Edition.

His face bears the features of the old tenants dispossessed

To make way for this ‘fair domain,’ all bright and blessed;

His swollen eyes and gangrenous grin

Channeling the spirit of Daemon Gin;

Domestic refugee

Of the True North, strong and free…

*

Yet go one block west and all is sharp and clean;

The temples of Mammon and their priests both aglow with Fortune’s sheen.

And down by Dundas the glassy halls teem,

 Ersatz Gandhis and counterfeit Ches gather, all in scholars’ guise,

To preach the gospel of spurious shame,

Baristas heaping rage ‘pon the suits and ties

Because in secret they lust for the same.

*

Why do you look so down-cast?

Go on now, hurry past!

Are you the first?

Do you really think you’ll be the last?

*

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