By Anna Daniels
He pushes his shopping cart
Down the via dolorosa of 45th Street
The dull clunk of glass bottles
Clattering of cans, the rattle of metal
And wheels on the pavement
Announce him
Tied to the cart, panting
In dingy white innocence
A small dog
Doggedly keeps up
With his master
Bent double over the cart handle
Head down face obscured
The naked tattooed arc of his back proclaiming
San Jose
Hanging from his belt
A red rag opens like a wound
Bleeds down his leg
He doesn’t expect anyone to wipe his face
Or offer to push his cart to redemption a few blocks away
Where glass goes for 10 cents a pound, aluminum cans– $1.59
Anna Daniels
I left a moribund Western Pennsylvania mill town the year that Richard M. Nixon was not impeached for crimes against the American people, and set off in search of truth, beauty, justice and a beat I could dance to. Here I am.
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It’s a beautiful image, Anna! Familiar and so deserving of attention. Thanks for sharing.
The poetic side of Anna Daniels. Me like! I’m considering posting a poem I wrote for Poetic Libations. I haven’t decided yet. I feel weird posting my non-journo stuff since I have yet to consider myself a creative writer. But then I still have a hard time considering myself a journo.
Post it, Brent!! (if it’s the one you shared on facebook, then I feel even more confident encouraging you to post it)
I never know when it’s ok to call myself a poet, or even just a writer for that matter. I scribble. Then, I feel a compelling desire to share so I don’t feel completely masturbatory.
The San Diego Free Press is impossible to peg as simply one thing. That also goes for all the people who contribute here– and for our readers, too.
I await your poem (s), Brent.
I’ve seen of what you’ve written and you capture it so beautifully, Anna.
Lovely, Anna, even though the topic is anything but. Where people usually just see the shopping cart and the suffocating poverty of it all, you’ve seen the person.
Beautiful,
No man/woman is an island; you see beyond your shores…
Ps. Ya, Desde, let’s see your stuff
There is a beauty to City Heights that people do not always see. May be if we see it as a neighborhood for everyone we would appreciate all of it’s people. Anna I loved your poem my first thought we need to really SEE the people we drive by.
.
Yes, see the people you walk by. Only a few of them are nuts, probably
the same percentage as are driving the freeways. I know somebody who
spent three years homeless and he said what Anna’s poem says; there
are days when all one does is to try to find some fuel to keep aching feet
and back moving, moving, moving.
I’m such a fan
Beautiful!