Poems from Doorway SleepOut 2012
As written about elsewhere on this site, on Saturday 28th January 2012, the Doorway Sponsored SleepOut took place. This was timed to take place during Poverty and Homelessness Action Week, the theme for which this year was ‘Breaking Barriers’ – “Our world is filled with barriers between people. Barriers that prevent us from understanding one another. They are created by……..the stigma attached to being poor or homeless”.
In St Andrew’s Churchyard, guests, volunteers, Doorway staff, sponsored sleepers, local dignitaries, ‘ordinary people’, the currently homeless, the previously homeless, those who had narrowly avoided being homeless, and those for whom that shadow has not (yet) crossed their lives, mingled without barriers. And during the SleepOut, there was a service in the Church, including two poems written and read out for the occasion by guest ‘jml10‘, who had also written and read out a poem for the Homelessness Sunday service in 2011.
One of the sponsored sleepers, Mark Urmston of BAE Systems, also wrote a poem, inspired by his experience of ‘sleeping out’ – “In my spell of being awake (around 3:15), I started wondering just how close to the edge we all are and it started to form in to a poem/prayer”.
So, poems from ‘both sides of the barrier’. Poems from two sensitive and expressive human beings. Here are all three.
Winter
by jml10
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You rise up early in the morning
And you haven’t got a hat
The doves are getting thinner
And the crows are getting fat
Gather up belongings
Stuff them in a sack
Creep away to town
Down some forgotten muddy track
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The morning crowd disperses
And you pray that no-one stops
You pilfering sustenance
From round the back of shops
A ghost that haunts the days
Begging for a light
Blurring the wings of a moth
Into one long endless night
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A dull and dreary day
Turning into gloomy dark
Brooding thoughts return
With the starlings in the park
Bundled in the doorway
An uninvited guest
Fists clenched under armpits
Knees drawn to the chest
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A head disappears inside a coat
Like a tortoise in a shell
Who knows his home is heaven
xxxxxxxxBecause homelessness
xxxxxxxxxxxxIs
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxHELL
Lottery
by Mark Urmston
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What if the bed I think of
Was nothing but a dream,
One trip along life’s footpath,
And it’s all washed down the stream.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Instead this box around me,
Became my long term home.
My life in to a rucksack,
Lost my friends, all alone.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The forecast that I’ve watched all week
And joked of scenes of snow
Becomes of life and death to me.
Can you laugh at 10 below?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What happens to my family
If the money all dried up.
Could we be strong together
Or would the pressure tear us up?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It’s not that hard to get there.
To the box beside the bin
Were all playing a lottery,
And a life is what we win.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Redundancy and lack of jobs
Economy gone to pot
The welfare state on life support
It doesn’t take a lot.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
So as I lay here thinking
In this cardboard box bed
I pray that this is not the way
My life is set to tread
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I pray for all who haven’t got
A bed to call their own
And ask you walk beside them
So they won’t feel so alone.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
And for the lucky ones like me
Who have a place to go,
I pray that in our hearts dear Lord.
You’ll help us all to know
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That shadows in a doorway
Are people made by you.
All you make are equal
Loving them, we’re loving you.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Doorway (2012)
by jml10
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If your life’s turned upside down
Your fortunes turned around
When the sky is black
And your world is turning blue
There’s no time to hesitate
Stand at the door and wait
Just come on down to Doorway
Come on through
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There you’ve got a place
You’re not just another face
Not just another rebel without a clue.
In a friendly smile you see
Your protected humanity
So come on down to Doorway
Come on through
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
People care about each other
People change, people move
And people do.
Lay aside your schemes
Your long-lost forgotten dreams
And come on down to Doorway
Come on through
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
They say that love is wide
It is long and deep and high
It’s here on Earth not just up in the sky.
If you don’t believe me be my guest
And put it to the test
And come on down to Doorway
Come on through