Walking on broken glass

Here's something I submitted to Salt Lake City Street News, SLC's new street newspaper. An abbreviated version of this poem appeared in the SLCC Community Writing Center publication Bridges; Volume 6, No. 1, Winter 2004. It only took me six years to finish it. [photo courtesy of bing]

The Broken, Glass Side

On the broken-glass side of my town

All the windows are shut up.

All the factories are shut down.

Each step upon the sidewalk

Creates a crack-ling sound

On the broken-glass side of my town.

On the broken glass side of my town

Little children rarely laugh;

Teenage mothers often frown.

The mind set seems constructed

To keep the good men down

On the broken glass side of my town.

Crystal shards of history

Strange and wondrous sights did see.

Where the wind

Blew the sun down

Over broken glass.

That side of town.

In your back yard, on your side of town

A human being slowly froze,

Wanting a bowl of soup, some bread,

Lacking food and warm clothes,

A lonely, banished man is dead

In the broken, glass side of your town.

In the stolen,

Bashed, blast-beaten,

Poor, passed

And half-eaten,

Broken, glass side

of our town.