Jose Padua: Those Years That Went Down
daytime drunks
still gather,
no longer hidden by
the ornament
of night
Michael Simms: Jesus
Sixteen and running
From my father’s fists
I once tried to jump on a moving train
Video: Buskers
Buskers is the story of Packo, a young Dubliner, and Milos, a Romanian immigrant, who battle to secure a space to beg at a Dublin train station. After a comical … Continue reading
John Lawson: Climax of a Story Never Told
It’s true: he and his blanket have grown old together here in the corner of the Episcopal church parking lot.
Deborah Bogen: Homeless Box
Sometimes we cross to the other side to get away from their carts and tarps, to avoid their dirty murky faces, but mostly we look through them, past them, above them, our eyes seeking the sanctuary of the shiny store windows.
Hama Tuma: Just a Nobody
The dead man was no one, just a man in tattered clothes, no shoes, just a coin in his pocket, no id cards, no bus ticket. He was a nobody, … Continue reading
Bill Traylor: Sidewalk Genius
Born into slavery, Traylor spent the majority of his life after emancipation as a sharecropper. It was only after 1939, following his move to Montgomery, Alabama that Traylor began to draw. At the age of 85, he took up a pencil and a scrap of cardboard to document his recollections and observations. From 1939 to 1942, while working on the sidewalks of Montgomery, Traylor produced nearly 1,500 pieces of art.
Carolyn Gregory: Leper
She wears her hat on her sleeve, bleeding badge of all she has suffered, arrow piercing the aorta when she lives out here. The alley becomes her nest in a … Continue reading
David Ades: Fairy Tale
Once there was a room, a house. Once there was a family, all threaded lives, there were books and learning, photographs, happy memories. Once there was a path, a … Continue reading
Susan Sailer: Life That Hard
23 degrees. He sat on the sidewalk near a street with a stoplight, a sign propped beside him HELP I born deaf, homeless Anything help On two layers … Continue reading
Chris Hedges: Faces of Pain, Faces of Hope
ANDERSON, Ind.—It was close to midnight, and I was sitting at a small campfire with Sybilla and Josh Medlin in back of an old warehouse in an impoverished section of … Continue reading
Video: Ironweed (Complete feature-length film)
Ironweed. Directed by Hector Babanco. Starring Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Carroll Baker, Michael O’Keefe, Diane Venora, Tom Waits, Fred Gynne. Written by Tom Bender and William Kennedy. Released in 1987. Running time: 2:23:03. … Continue reading
Deborah Bogen: Rue Saint-Séverin
Dirt and hunger. Foreheads burnt, no, branded by heat. Backpacks. Paper cups. Bundles that are everything we own. Beneath the gargoyles, our babies sleep. We used to have houses. Once … Continue reading
Video: They building more prisons for you and me
Homeless man silences the room with his beautiful voice. “People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, … Continue reading
Vox Populi 