Togetherness

They’re there;
hollowed into make-shift sponge-foam beds,
tight-curled into malodorous rag-blankets
and plastic of dubious origin.
 
They’re there;
the shadow-ghost people
of no fixed abode,
gathered loosely together
in cohesive misery.
 
They’re there;
existing on society’s fringe,
sustained by the government’s pandering promises;
sharing glue-highs and garbage rot.
 
They’re there;
old children, dying people,
together in perpetual poverty.
 
They’re there;
trampled contours on grass verges,
silhouettes on street corners,
robotic vendors with nothing to sell
but themselves.
 
They’re there;
the street-people of forgotten causes,
unified in the rainbow nation
of lost hopes.

Man Waiting for a Bus Smoking an Invisible Pipe
©2022 Gerry Shepherd

Irene Emanuel…

…was born in Johannesburg, lived in Durban, and now lives in Port Elizabeth. She won of the “Hilde Slinger” cup for poetry in 2009 and again in 2013, and the “Fay Goldie” cup for General Success in the World of Publishing in 2011, both from the South African Writers” Circle. Nine of her poems were published in “Signatures” an anthology of Women’s poetry (2008), and shre represented “Live Poets’ Society” in “Poetry Africa” that same year. In 2006, “A Scorpion Sings,” her first anthology, appeared. Other anthologies published between 2006 and 2015 are: “Count Catula of Shadoland & Friends,” “A Peace of Me.” and “A Scorpion Sings Again.”

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