Shanty Town Poem by phattkat Poet

I walk upon
cold cobblestones
not finding shelter
from the storms
that rage within
the black and smoky
kettles of the shanty poor
and all their splintered
creaking wood framed houses
that would pass for home
except for lack of
even simple pleasantries
to call their own

How can I face
the vile and putrid truth
that I am wading through
if nothing that I see or smell
or taste or hear
or say or breathe
can match
the anguished mutterings
of hopelessly
impoverished men
or cries of children
torn too soon
from bloody womb
to face the wretched fate
that even those
who brave the cobblestones
would never think
of really facing
down around the Shanty Town
the Southern side of Shanty Town
the side that evil came to know
as its sweet lover long ago
yes longer
than the longest long ago
before the white man
or the black man
or the colors of
the many men
that came before the start
of hating color
in the flesh of men

Or of their poor and broken
Shanty Towns
where crying in the night
is all the welcome home
left to the bones
of all the colored men
who felt the hate
and bit deep into flesh
while choking
on their last request

Please let me go back
to my Shanty Town
where I can breathe
in poor man's air
and for a season
just be left alone
be left alone to walk
upon the cobblestones
the cobblestones
I call my home

in Shanty Town

.