How to Not See Beggars

This is my poem that was shortlisted for the 2020 ACU Poetry Prize   

How To Not See Beggars

 

It is a given you won't hear them.

A street is lost to traffic. Pavement

trips over to get in the door. Knobs

 

polish. Then, now, pennies drop.

Despite all of the wailing and groans,

they are a kind of dumb show.

 

Man with knees backwards.

Woman in puddle, in shadow in snow.

Low penitent growl, inaudible.

 

Nothing to notice, still the eyes

are involved. You have to steel

yourself. They are ghost gargoyles

 

come to earth. They are the neighbourhood

watch. Know what passes for what in these

parts. You have to be hard as daylight.

 

As night is cold, you have to be harder

than them, not to see. Are they puppets?

Will legs rust? Is performance of or after

 

fact? Fine line divides them from the buskers.

These ones are transparent. You know them

from bumming it, nights lost to bottle

 

or worse. A show of much thanks is offered.

So sorry to have come to such. Contrition!

See my hands empty? Clean, nails trimmed.

 

If you give, you show. Each is a street.

A certain turning. Genius loci, like gods

the Romans, Chinese, will have.

 

Out with the bathwater, stove and blanket.

They sway to a breeze you can only imagine.

Will they have had names? One day a hospital

 

will meet them, where they will be declared.

Made equal, citizens. Imagine this future is the past.

Their locomotion is as it must have been

 

when we were all worms inching. But these

are not our ancestors. Today, give just a coin.

Feed the racket, so there will be more. Drift

 

up with the pigeons. No one wants a crust

of bread these days. Cupped hand to catch

and all set sail. We are astral travellers.

 

Not everybody knows. Some days the vertical

hold goes. And they fly past, all imploring,

as in a shopwindow display. There but for

 

God's grace, you might have come at this needle's

eye. With wise camels and gifts in tow. Draw

blinds but they're still out on the street. Immortals!

 

You think they are against the grain that you're

up with. Think you're the wraith seen through?

They are the wall, the beckoning. Hand out

 

of the brickwork, taking the measure of everything

given. They show it's too late to pinch yourself

when hearts have turned to stone.