Poetry X Hunger
  • Home
  • Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger
  • Hunger Poetry
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
  • Young!
    • Poems by Young Poets
    • Videos
    • Materials for Teachers
  • Library
    • Extent of Hunger >
      • Global Hunger: Progress & Challenges
      • Hunger in the US
    • Historic Accounts of Hunger >
      • Africa
      • The Americas
      • Asia
      • Europe and Russia
    • Historical Poems
    • Interviews
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources & Donations >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources

Hunger Poems

You are encouraged to read the poems posted here and elsewhere on the

Poetry X Hunger website, to look  
at 
the historic accounts of hunger,

famine and starvation, or consider the ​prompts suggested and then...

​write some poetry about hunger.
 

Poem by Philip Brent Harris

11/2/2020

2 Comments

 
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.



Click on the file below to listen to Philip read his poem:
not_him.mp3
File Size: 6742 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

Picture
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.

2 Comments

    Suggestions & Ideas

    Take a look at some of the writing prompts to get inspired!

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019

    Poets

    All
    A.G. Kawamura
    Anne Harding Woodworth
    Argos MacCallum
    Blair Ewing
    Brenda Bunting
    Brian Manyati Aka Towandah Ryan
    C.C. Arshagra
    Christopher T. George
    Cliff Bernier
    Debbi Brody
    Dee Allen
    Don Hamaliuk
    Dorothy Lowrie
    Ed Zahniser
    Eileen Trauth
    Elise Power
    Emily Vargas-Barón
    Eric Forsbergh
    Evan Belize
    Gayle Lauradunn
    Glynn Axelrod
    Grace Beeler
    Grace Cavalieri
    Heather Banks
    Holly Wilson
    Jay Carpenter
    Jay Carson
    Jefferson Carter
    Jeffrey Banks
    Joan Dobbie
    J R Turek
    Judy Kronenfeld
    Julie Fisher
    Kalpna Singh-Chitnis
    Kari Gunter-Seymour
    Kathamann
    Kim B Miller
    Kitty Cardwell
    Kitty Jospé
    Laura McGinnis
    Linda Dove
    Linda Trott Dickman
    Lindsay Barba
    Lisa Biggar
    Lynn Axelrod
    Margaret Brittingham
    Martha E. Snell
    Michael Glaser
    Michael Minassian
    Milton Carp
    Naima Penniman
    Nan Meneely
    Naomi Ayla
    N Chamchoun
    Philip Harris
    Robbi Nester
    Robert Fleming
    Ron Shapiro
    Sharon Anderson
    Sherrell Wigal
    T. A. Niles
    T.A. Niles
    Theresa Richard
    Tom Donlon
    Vickisa
    Vincent J Calone
    V.j.calone
    William Rivera
    Zane Yinger

    RSS Feed

Copyright PoetryXHunger 2022


Search the website:

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger
  • Hunger Poetry
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
  • Young!
    • Poems by Young Poets
    • Videos
    • Materials for Teachers
  • Library
    • Extent of Hunger >
      • Global Hunger: Progress & Challenges
      • Hunger in the US
    • Historic Accounts of Hunger >
      • Africa
      • The Americas
      • Asia
      • Europe and Russia
    • Historical Poems
    • Interviews
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources & Donations >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources