Ghosts in the City

While walking the fashionable Fillmore Street, near California, it appeared that a long-lost coworker/acquaintance that is now quasi-homeless was huddled in a doorway looking subhuman. Immediately I think of other people I have known over my twenty years in San Francisco who, like the huddled one mentioned above, being once healthy and vibrant, are now no longer. I ponder a few recent run-ins with the like. This poem springs from that inner-dialog.

Ghosts in the city

These ghosts in the city pass through me. I’m passing them— Passing quickly. They howl as I pass, Outstretch a word or a wrest… These ghosts in doorways, These ghosts on the bus, These ghosts crawling sideways, These ghosts leaking rust, They were bright Blue and sparkly, Tall and tout. They were spirited, Sharp and with wit, They were friends. They were with it. These ghosts… These ghosts who sleep in doorways Dining on scrumptious crust Romantic as they’re colorful Surviving on their gut. Murky, dying, dull, Crunched over and small, Empty-headed, slow, Gloom-filled, They were friends. They were with it. Now I see these people Not as friends, ghosts or as they are… These frequent occurrences I witness Recall to me my scars. Reminds me I’m frail, Just as human, Just as weak. I wish I could stop seeing them, I just have nothing left to speak.