Prayers

Prayers dance tragically upon cracked city streets and beneath
     grimy and broken windows of old       apartment buildings, where forlorn faces peer out
in rusted long. 

Prayers dance tragically upon cracked
city streets and beyond…

 the aches, and pains
      of a homeless woman
 dressed in rags, and  hopelessness

 the grief
 of an elderly woman
 dressed in constant need,
 
 the scarlet regrets
 of an addict
 dressed in addiction.

the tumultuous storms of discontent
continue to wash into the grimy alleys of the homeless, drowning them with
reality
as the harshness of their
embittered lives tear at their weary    bones,

the hopeful fantasies of the embattled elderly fade into obscurity when Social Security checks no longer keep up with the cost of merely existing.

The dreams of the addict drown in the allies of scavenged hours, where their screams become empty sounds like the echo of dead leaves falling onto cracks in the wretched pavement of the city.




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