Sudha Hamilton

“The Kid”

As he aimlessly wanders the city streets,

With an air of an indifference to the sounds and rhythmic beats.

He becomes a living shadow, with watchfulness and smirk,

Witnessing the tension and paranoia, that makes society work.

One more proletariat android calculating the pennies his life is worth,

Despising and sharing the escapist joy of intoxicated mirth.

The naked streets have become his home,

A world encased in puissant gleaming chrome.

An inner-city refugee fleeing, suburban slow death,

Left to gabble in the gutters and draw a polluted breath.

While society looked on, with indignant cries and howls,

Suggesting remedies for dogs and cats that prowl.

Before dusk, he descends beneath the superficies to slumber,

Where prostrated in a corner, he recants a welfare number.

To battle the cold and filth orientated insomnia of today,

Submerged in dreams far from graffiti frescoes, adorning this subway.

This momentary retreat plagues his being,

Contradicting the brutality his sunlight hours are seeing.

Cursing life, such an unseen and frustrating foe,

Remembering pain inducing policing, punching low.

Street-wise, he parades his rage and feeds on fear,

Futile to hold hope, only statistically they hear.

Universal injustice and blind belief,

Survival as vandal and petty thief.

Daubed in dirt he threatens his misanthropic machinations,

Fuelled by sanctioned, social neglect and deprivation.

With a pulsating instinct to lift the establishment lid,

Spitting at charities’ turgid tambourines, he is the kid.

Driven by the sound of the empty can and its consistent clatter,

Chaperoned by hate and the desire to grow fatter.

©Sudha Hamilton