Inner City Blues

Inner city blues, we know is nothing new
Discarded lives of young and old
like yesterdays paper...
a fleeing story that slowly drifts on by
No longer today, not worth tomorrows news...
another statistic, recycled with the times

Or just left behind, as the next influx slowly creeps in,
a daily list of societie's casualties
Souls of what worth to you and i
Victims by their own hand, of their own mind
Robbed of all thats left of self-esteem
while passively swolled by the coldness
of a callused world


Lost is said, somewhere under, somewhere hidden,
a flickering shadow cast on a cardboard box thats home...
if only for tonight
Despair, languish, misery, its all the same
A step in either direction, waiting
and shadows cast by many others
surround its choaking circle

Regardless of where they been or who they once were
their right of passage, now lonely a traveled road
Stripped of any meaning, of all dignity
while standing on a corner their hand silently calling...
for your pity or your blessing

Later in the night some will count their given sorrows
a days work while the heat from a trash can warms
whats left of their soul
The smile of temporary comfort on many faces arises as whatever
is passed around and then, just then...
all seems right with the world, the challenge is forgotten

the rountine is concrete
exsistance minimal
The new come as the old slowly fade away
to waiting arms in the stillness of their last night
No one to be missed, on one can affort a tear
when there no longer is one to spare
Some will be missed and it will end...
right there

Time waits for no one, another day might come
Habits are calling and they show no patience, no mercy
Whatever it must take must be done
or there will be hell to pay
as its hounds constantly bark at their torn,worn heels
reminding constantly...
who is really in control
til they bark no more when breath is gone
and a beat is stilled

And so it goes with these inner city blues
discarded lives of young and old
like yesterday's evening news
and if you listen...
in the distance you too will hear...
its whispered life of blues
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There is no happy ending, no rainbow around the corner.
Only reality of the many who struggle to get from one day to the other.
I've seen it all, and i've seen it on a street level and even under that.
There is no pretty way of expressing this life. It cannot be candy coated.
Its raw and its nasty, but it exsists in every city. More each day join
its masses and you'd be amazed of all the various backgrounds!
i realize now, how the mind is so very powerful and yet as fragil
as the thinnest piece of glass.