Author Information
Bum Fights
There's a video out of homeless people fighting
each other in exchange for a few bucks, a hit of crack or some beer.
The creators of the show are lily white suburban boys with blue eyes,
clear skin, and knit hats.
They filmed the sick, the hopeless, the lost
(never to be found)
and made a mockery which made them a fortune.
A fortune that will probably be spent on topless dancers, strawberry cocaine,
supreme gasoline, distressed denim, whores and high definition Sony flat screens.
They will never truly see what they've filmed as it really is.
They have no right to even look upon the tightly packed shopping carts
filled with letters from home, matted clothes too tight, transistor radios in
cardboard shelters that broadcast the hot spot
vacation loops to the ones that will never go.
They have no right to film the loitering tickets issued,
the blistered feet, the tired eyes, the needles void of hope and filled with anguish,
the tiny tarnished locket that hangs from a neck housing the
faded picture of a loved one that doesn't have
the money to help, but keeps you in their prayers all the same.
Raymond Mitchell Strickland jr.
May 26, 2010
