Two Poems
Marinus Yong
No Door, No Roof
Destitute, the miscreants that have no home
Are wont to move and always roam.
They comb the streets and search for meals
Which they can eat and pay no bills.
Before the sun shows its smiling face
They’re off to the highways in a rapid race
To mind and man and mend the bus
Amidst the fights and fumes and fuss.
Some sell all that there is to hold
Running and rushing after cars that hoot
In hope and wish their wares are sold
And ensure the date’s wretched food.
As the red sun dims and brings the moon
They head back where they have no roof
In limps and hobbles to tend their wound
Acquired from fights and fuss and goof.
They have no door that they can lock
And sleep just where they count the stars.
You find them there near every block
Nursing new wounds on scary scars.
Bowls for Alms
The teeming kids who throng the streets
Are armed always with bowls for alms
They mill around with daring feats
To assuage their hunger with ulcer balms.
They move in droves in dirty robes
That tell the world of wanted care
Eluding them from thieves of votes
Whose alms to them are very rare.
Now they are told to go indoors
And lock their doors
Against the adversity
They cannot see.
Now they are told to keep clean hands
And split at once their clustered bands
In fear of he they cannot see
Like a little bee on the crown’s dim lee.
Now they are told to always disguise
With a blinding device
That keeps at bay
The crown’s foray.
They wonder why you talk of doors
When they have never needed one
As they don’t even know your flaws
Have nursed and nurtured their pinching want.
They wonder why you mix hands and clean
When you know they have never seen soap
Since their unknown mothers had to wean
And dump them on the streets to try and cope.
They wonder why they should hide the face
To give what they can’t see a violent chase.
They laugh at you and stretch their bowl
So you keep as one their body and soul.