Listen to audio
“ We The Homeless ”
– not by choice – revisited
It’s not by choice,
We’ve but the street
For our new host,
In this life gone bleak
It be thus a last resort,
Begs we’d not seek
Wanting as consort,
Held so to speak
Apt be a gritty ghost,
Led we live incomplete
Having lost one’s voice,
Mindful of our fate
Now being without choice,
In a discombobulated state
That be life on the street,
The while this last resort
Be until we are too weak,
To drag our bones to port
In a life of empty options,
That be for we the homeless,
Held fixed to muted notions
Reduced we be to nameless,
Drifting in crowded sad seclusion
We’ve to live as shadows on the street…
Suffer alas said we the homeless
In a populous fashioned by human apathy,
Offered in overwhelming abundance
To a growing number of ignored failed voices…
We the homeless, not by choice!
© Jean-Jacques Fournier
Photography, by Marianne Dessis –
Music, by Kai Engel –
Poetry on a canapé 
A very moving poem giving voice to the voiceless.
I agree wholeheartedly, Liz!!
Nice of you to say, Liz, and encouraging, for one way or another I’ve tried to express my reflections in a way that would speak out for all of us who are frustrated by this world’s undemocratic dictatorial systems. One parading under the hypothetical guise of democracy. Such being the apparent so called system of, for the people by the people, that the Athenian conceived, to fool said people into believing they would be masters of their own fate, as in their freedom, welfare and destiny. If I’m not mistaken, we’re still waiting and seemingly have a ways to go, until the powerful and ultra wealthy greeds have amassed more than enough wealth than they have room to accommodate…!
As long as our political system is based on the amount of money someone can chuck at getting himself elected, we will continue to wait.
And that is why the glaring faulty so-called Democratic system we have unconscionably suffered, since it’s inception has to be changed to truly be for the people… and not for they we elect, as in hire, and pay well to manage our affairs honestly. Voilà…!
Sent from my iPhone
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If only it could be so . . .
Thank you Jean-Jacques for this profound and thoughtful discussion of the plight of the homeless. As cities grow, homelessness increases. Homelessness and poverty are truly momentous challenges that we must face as a global community.
Ah Rebecca, I can but echo your sentiments, tho I may not have as much faith as needed to believe my present day fellow beings will manage to wake up to our present day so-called democracy. Thus so as to force desperately needed changes to our political and social systems, that presently has our politicians and civil servants working for the people, rather than what it has always been, once elected, we the people are working for them, once they are in office. After all it is our work and earnings that pays for their existence and livelihood!
A sad state so poignantly portrayed. The last two lines hit on the silent epidemic going on as a result of loss of jobs, etc. Sadly, they are kept in the shadows by those who refuse to shine a light on their plight.
Thanks, Paulette… Though I’d written this piece barely before the very beginning of Corvid-19, when then in Italy, the second worst hit country at the time. As it turned out and as you put it it also shone the light of this said virus. Thus so to soon rbe ecognized as this silent worldwide enemy, that some fearless leaders still ignorantly refuse to face up to its completely devastating destructive horror.
If there is sufficient intelligence left where it counts, in some countries, changes could be made, after and when, in the next five months, in the USA at least, the worst hit of all, corrective measures will hopefully be taken…!