Poem by Philip Brent Harris

Not Him
Let‘s walk among the crowds downtown,
On an average morning,
Hectic and harried, growing denser.
Hurry along now,
Past a doorman at a four-star hotel,
Past a homeless man.
A women arrives in a dark sedan.
Every line screams privilege.
Don’t step on his filthy blanket,
Don’t look him in the eye,
As the door man helps her, “This way, ma’am,”
Handing her from the car.
He puts her luggage on a cart,
Calls for a bellhop,
Runs interference as she scurries inside.
Hide the truth; avert your eyes,
Though we all share the same skies.
The doorman glares, again,
At this visible wreck of a man,
Flips open his smart phone,
Calls the non-emergency number, again.
He has it on speed dial.
Finished, he says, “C’mon man, give me a break.”
The homeless man ignores him,
(They’ve played this game before)
Sitting in the sun,
His back against the wall.
The night’s chill still
Has not left him
And rich guilt has only
Brought a couple of bucks,
And change.
Still not enough
For a cup of coffee
And a pack of cigarettes.
Hide the truth; avert your eyes,
Though we all share the same skies.
Cigarettes still a gnawing hunger.
Yet, she cannot smoke
In her room,
Not in this hotel, this city.
Should she care
That her craving is mirrored
By a marginalized man,
For the same purpose?
Far from the same reason.
She worries that she won’t
Fit into her designer sheath tonight.
He worries that he won’t
Beg enough to eat tonight.
And, at this moment,
They both stay at the same hotel.
Time to move, time to move,
On the street for lack of love.
The man stands and stretches,
Flashes his gap-tooth smile at the doorman,
Who ignores him.
Gathering his things close, in ritual,
The man carefully rolls his blanket,
Stuffs it in his duffle.
So small a place
To contain a man’s world:
Past and present,
Hopes and heartaches,
Dreams and disappointments,
Vanished spirit,
And the picture.
Carefully wrapped and
Near the top,
Of her,
Wavy long brown hair
A twinkle in her eye,
For him.
How trite, he thinks,
Yet true.
If I lost my love
Or she were taken,
I would wander through my days
Forsaken.
Bereft of heart
And reason
I would walk down city streets,
Looking for a sign,
A laugh, a word
A snatch of song.
My face and my soul
Withered, wrinkled,
Unwashed, uncaring and untouched.
The woman waits now
In the lobby.
She has changed
Her blouse and shoes.
A man enters,
Italian suit and style.
She smiles at him
walking toward her.
They embrace.
As over his shoulder
She sees the homeless man,
Head down.
Walking slowly
Away.
She pulls back and says something
To the man she’s with.
He pulls out his wallet,
Hands her a bill,
Then another,
At her look, angry, wounded.
She hurries then.
The man says wait.
Toward the door, solace,
Heedless,
Her high-heeled sandals
Make it hard to run.
Nevertheless, she
Catches the man on the street.
He stops,
Hearing the sound of her heels.
She takes his sleeve, tentative,
Tugs,
Presses the bills
Into his hand,
Turns away.
“Thank you,” he says
To her retreating back,
And then looks.
The money,
A fifty and a twenty.
“I can’t,” he starts to say,
Turning around.
If she heard him,
She doesn’t show it.
The sting of pride,
Thought long forgotten
Spurred him
To reject a small fortune.
His good fortune.
He’s yet to lose his reason.
Hard lessons taught him,
He can’t eat pride.
“Hey, lady,” he shouts,
“Thank you.”
She almost seems
To miss a step.
So swiftly, he’s uncertain
And she continues on,
Into the lobby, gone.
He slowly turns,
Continues walking,
Stuffing the bills deep
Into the pocket of his first shirt,
The one deepest inside
Of the four he wears.
He shakes his head
Then shuffles on.
And both this woman and man,
Both bewildered,
Rich and poor,
Will eat well this night.
Only one
Will sleep well.
It will not be him.

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Philip Brent Harris is a poet, philosopher, satirist, essayist, fine artist, digital  artist, and occasional photographer. He has a BA in Film Studies, with a screenwriting emphasis and has written over a dozen screenplays, some with his partner, Jasmina Bojic of Stanford University. After their partnership dissolved he had a five-year hiatus from writing. Shortly after he began oil painting, he still felt an itch he could not scratch. He felt compelled to respond to the Newtown shootings and wrote a satire modeled on Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal, called An Immodest Proposal, purporting to advocate for universal gun ownership. After that, the damn broke and he has written constantly since then, much of it verse. This surprised him, since he thought it a form he had finished with in Junior High School. He has a novel under review at two major publishers and hopes to add the title author to his list.

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