Refugees
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
travels through the streets of my town,
bringing in with it the refugees,
the sinners and saints of flotsam.
It’s filled with meth heads and junkies,
coppers bent like spoons
from years under pressure,
saints eking out their existence
by the station under the lights,
like the white girl with the black feet
whose hair looks like it
hasn’t been brushed in years,
who has nowhere to go but there
and nothing to do but drink
endless cans of Coca Cola,
leaving the cans in a heap
at the end of her bed in the street
because she can’t leave to dispose of them,
who sleeps with her face to the wall
hoping the crowds don’t trip on her
or kick her in their hurry to go Some Place Else.
Jesus lives on the streets, his hair and beard
long and brown around his ocean deep eyes,
warning me to leave before there’s trouble;
he saw a bloke get stabbed
in the neck the last time there was trouble.
When it rains some of them hide under the bridge,
in Parramatta or at the back of the hospital in Westmead.
You can go there most any time and Shaun’ll be there,
bonging on, and he’ll share if you’re real
and bring some the next time you come.
Down at the Wooli it’s a bit of a bus station,
a shelter for the flotsam,
a home for the street,
and a holiday for those who go Some Place Else.
There’s beer, and whiskey if you want,
and they drink and play in the pool comp
on a Tuesday and Thursday night,
sometimes get weed or pills
{who knows what the “lucky” pills are,
E, speed, or something much harsher}
and a girl keeps score
as she’s done for a hundred years
even though she’s only twenty five.
Afterward, at the end, they drink some more,
donate money to the pokies,
score if they can,
under the watchful eye of a new manager,
who keeps booting the same underage drinkers
out every single week.
It’s a world of its own at the Wooli,
a circus where the damned play music
from the jukebox
and guys introduce themselves to newcomers,
saying names like Tai, or Scruffy,
Kez or an older woman called Joan
who’s hiding from her Angel boyfriend,
who nevertheless has blokes sniffing around
for a risky night that might end with the boyfriend
named Shotgun turning up to live up to his name.
Then they go, some home alone,
or home to a warm bed and moist pussy
with breakfast in the morning before
going Some Place Else for work.
In other places, the studios and cafes,
the scribblers, the talkers, dreamers
and recorders of the refugees
from this strange and dark world
make uncertain love to microphones
in dark places, rejected by those
who know no better than football on Friday.
There’s wisdom in the streets, amongst the refugees;
love can be found in those trapped
sleeping in the station, like the bloke
who lives by the ticket machine
and always has time to help those
who need the machine to work
on their way to get Some Place Else.
All these flotsam people of the streets
these losers crushed under our heedless
rush to our own expectations, want
is a smile, a word, maybe a cigarette;
on a good day they dream of a chance.
We are all falling, it’s just that some don’t know;
some fall to hell, some fall to heaven,
and some are refugees, the saints
who don’t care much
about Going Some Place Else.
