There is a lot of “we must look after our own first” going around now that the refuggees from Syria are on their way. A folk invisible to all – about whom Id written Outcasts in from the Cold – eyes now important that there are others from outside. The new care for our own homeless is good to see, and iof the refugees go I hope it lasts.
I passed by two of our own tonight settling down to sleep as the sun set around 7pm on Shop Street, under the Treasure Chest shop, those who had nothing… Neither do the refugees, both need our help.
Shots out of focus as I was walking and didnt want to appear to obvuis that I was photographing them. Homeless Couple Asleep under Treasure Chest shop windows on Shop Street in Galway tonight
I think we can look after both.
A story done the rounds yesterday of an Irishwoman with her children sleeping rough on Shop Street here in Galway the night before last. I spread it online to try and root up support. A presbyterian minister from Tullamore got some of his folk on standby, a NUIG student active in the pro life cause, and one of the Occupy activists (allbeit after 24 hours) responded, there was a few likes, and no reshares or retweets online. Of the comments most were about the refugees being looked after but not our own.
Iwalked Shop Street from 8 to 10pm found no sign of them. Spoke with some of the Buskers who know all the homeless and they knew nothing of it, so it must be an urban legend. I hope it was.
Why did it develop? The exhibition “Infinity” on Shop Street highlighted the refugees case – some from the Giddy Biddy collective lived in a container for 24 hours, and passers by including numpty here, dipped thumbs in ink and left their mark on a board as a “thumbs up” for the cause, and it got nationwide coverage on RTE. I assume the urban legend – if thats what it is – sprung up as a reaction to that.
If it is a real story, I hope they got help. There is a group called Anchora Im told by the pro life girl in Galway that helps women but I cant find it. If I do Ill post.
Passing by the couple tonight inspired these words…
Love sleeps rough on a Galway street
Neath the Treasure Chest shop on Shop Street
I pass by, another staring stranger in the wetting rain
He looks up… our eyes meet
He looks sad, yet looks happy
All he needs is her, his treasure, with him there
On a concrete street, wet, cold, neath cold falling rain
As walkers by like me blankly stare.
Some talk of anger there are no refugees
Who end up like Irish sleeping rough
Who never cared before, or if they did kept it very quiet
Mutter slogan, look after our own first, but is it real or bluff?
A story spread, our own, a mother and her wains
– Like what died in Longford at our house in famine times –
Sleeping in a doorway, I spread the word online
Where normally I spread smutty memes, jokes and rhymes.
There was few likes or comments to my post
Delayed response from the political minded and no shares
But a man of Christ responded, and a woman too
Their advice or assistance offered if true this state of affairs.
There was no sign of them when on the streets I walked
None others had heard the story that I heard who there music played
It was probably – I hope it was – a mere urban legend
To berate treatment begrudged to refugees by small minded folk dismayed.
So I of the lovers who sleep in the rain tonight as I passed by
Mere poems of their tragic love and lives poems write
I moved not by new found rage at good treatment of refugees
Who I’d not cared about but now see their plight.
I seen them and cared before, but the story know
That if drunk or drugged in hostels they cannot stay
There are no wet hostels in the West, and those in Dublin are too rough
I have no answers bar to not condemn them and a silent prayer to say.
Native Americans say who sleeps skin to earth sleeps as one with the world
So they sleep, separated from the clay by concrete laid by man
As they are by addictions created for profit of society
Paid for by their pain, that’s not Gods plan.
He keeps her from concretes hardness where neath her he lies
She, a blanket keeps him warm, biting wind on her back
They have the love even if only fleeting that they who have little share
That many passing by richer in money, of the riches of spirit lack.
