A Story Often Quoted. Poem by willow moon pearce

Walk past West 47th street
There you will see the heartbreak
Of New York.
The six thousand bag ladies
We see and all too soon forget.

This truly black mark on a rich city
Had its setting when asylums and homes,
Were opened and the patients became
Street people, a lot of them sedated by medication they never took and never refilled.
Flooding Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Unwashed, stinking with the rotten clothes,
They wear permanently,
Diseased both physically and mentally, leg sores crippling them
Begging for help they so desperately need.

They are scared away from shelters due to the violence and assault
And the way they are treated, like vermin.
That is so common.
My God this is New York, the big apple.
A city that sweeps them away from the tourist areas
Just before large conventions - so they do not ' bother ' anybody.

I'm tired of flogging a dead horse
The problem gets no better
And the frightening thing is,
It could happen to all and sundry.
God help corrupt and uncaring governments.
God help the meek and helpless.
God help we do something soon for our brothers and sisters.