Do You See Them? Poem by Peter Madden

they sit on street corners..
in the alleys and the gutters...
hiding in plain sight...
from an uncaring world..

do you see them...

pale reflections of their past selves..
broken and abused by the ghosts of former lives..
addicted to what were once simple joys...
shadows in our daylight realm...

do you see them...

walked over by unseeing eyes...
yet their stories are plain to see..
carved mercessly upon their faces...
and tattooed into their shattered souls...

do you see them...

judged by the unworthy...
and blamed for their own private hell...
the victims of a million stories...
they huddle together in dispair...

do you see them...

fallen reflections of ourselves...
like dark mirrors of our lives...
showing how we could have been...
if people had us refused to see...

please see them....

by Peter Madden 27/8/12