The poet’s recording app became unresponsive while making this post, so only the written version of the poem is available.

*****

Outside the Garret Door

Ah, look! The quintessential image
We’ve all seen before
Yet have not found a way to change
No matter how much it abhor

(Because we really, truly don’t
Object to it so very much
In fact, we tend to see in it
Misshapen justice’ touch)

A lone purveyor of the arts
Sits her tiny garrett in
Her few possessions there arranged
Neat as any pin

Naught but a crust of bread we find
On her bare truckle board
She’s wearing the entire lot
Of her small clothing’s horde

One candle gives both heat and light
One inkwell holds the pen
To write on foolscap paper
She dips it in again

(But she is lithe and fair, we sniff,
Heart-tugging beauty she produce
Something must to a less lofty
Level her reduce…)

If these were all her hardships
She’d make them function well
It’s what’s outside that garret
That the picture doesn’t tell

The jealous, spiteful spinster
Living cross the hall
Who doesn’t welcome love and light
Into her world at all

And knowing that the poet works
At night the quiet for,
Makes sure that many times each day
She slams her own front door

The alcoholic down the hall
Between hers and main entranceway
Accosting her each time she leaves
With something threatening to say

The lady of the evening
Who displays a heart of gold,
Then turns her confidences to
Small sufferings untold

The street which she, perforce, must walk
Every time she comes and goes
Seeps every kind of ordure through
Her shoes, right to her toes

Desperate people waiting round
Each corner she pass by
Longing for the dim relief of
Making somebody else cry

And if she take her grubby self
Into the better parts of town
Knows surely she’ll receive unkindness
Here a sneer, and there a frown

(So what if she dies early?
So very oversensitive
Unrealistic seems to us —
Doesn’t deserve to live!)

*****

Homeless until removal of the stalker/targeter/vandal/arsonist following her allows her to approach any landlord ~ even for a private parking space ~ this poet presently lives under perpetual threat of towing with all possessions should her 23-year-old van stop running for any reason.

She is badly in need of a modest reserve with which to field any emergency which might occur.

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