Where do we belong to? Sense of PLACE

When you hear the word “home” what feelings overwhelm you?  What images cross your mind when you utter the word “my home”? What room in your house do you feel most comfortable in? Why? Which room do you not generally get into? Why? Which room would you like to have if you could? Describe it? Say why you cherish such a place.

Now look at the following photos.  These people certainly have different views of what their “home” is.  With a partner describe these photos, mention what in your opinion is “home” to the people portrayed in them.  Then choose a photo and describe the person’s or people’s home, present and past, present and future.  What is s/he thinking of? What are they thinking about?  What are the feelings that “ooze” from the photo?

Choose the protagonist of your photo.  Give him/her/them and identity and write a poem based on the mental picutre you have created.  Herewith below you will find some nice poems I found on homelessness.  Enjoy them.

another homeless person died

by Judy Jones

another homeless person just died
another homeless person died
and not one person cried
not one person cried

cause its just another
homeless person that died
not people like you and me
like you and me

someone’s dying in the gutter
somewhere
dying in the gutter somewhere
with nothing but their soul laid bare
nothin but their soul laid bare

a homeless chile is eating from a
garbage can
eating from a garbage can
and not one person sees
not one person sees

an old woman fell on the street
cause she’d had nothin to eat
nothin to eat
an old woman fell on the street

tonight i looked in the mirror and cried
for i saw my own soul had died
my soul had died

Homeless – A Poem

She huddled in the bus shelter, chilled to the bone
So far away from home and completely alone
The people in their houses so warm and dry
That’s when it all seemed so clear and she started to cry.

Life can throw some pretty low blows
On a wet face a tear never shows
Lonely for some attention and love
Sometimes asking why? From God up above.

Dwellings across the street warm and inviting,
The cold in her ungloved hands now biting
She guessed it must be dinner time
Through the double glazing it looked like a happy mime
Inside a famlly sitting down, Mum kissing children, Dad acting the clown

So desperate for a hot bath and a filling meal
Lost for a moment in a dream of how good that would feel
For her, damp feet had lost all their feeling
Thoughts of a warm bed for one night so appealing

Did the people in those homes appreciate what they’ve got
They don’t understand her plight, so probably not.
A life on the street could throw you some knocks
Dark, sinister strangers, made your heart wear a lock.

No one knew how her sodden clothes felt
A day with overcast skies from where freezing rain pelts
She couldn’t go back to her childhood home
That’s where danger, abuse and violence still roam.

The homes opposite with curtains still open wide
Made her think of better days when she still had some pride
Now to beg for change was no longer a daily chore
The people out shopping had so much more

Some swore and said words she could not repeat
Others hurried by or crossed the street
The ones with eyes that looked straight through
Unknowingly inflicted a pain only she knew

Maybe they were embarassed with feelings unclear
But to become invisible was her greatest fear.
Tonight insulated with newspapers salvaged from a bin
She hopes for the better life tomorrow might bring

Now she bravely wipes away tears
Closes her eyes and silences fears
Somehow with returning inner strength
She softly cajoles herself at some length

This homeless person on this rainy night must cope
As for her there’s not the luxury of giving up hope.

A Homeless Man

When compared to mine his dreams are very humble he does not seek much out of life at all
A small flat he could call his home to live in compared to most his wishes seem quite small
At sixty seven years he’s on the street and homeless a Winter dawn is breaking cold and gray
With long gray beard and looking thin and shabby he walks uptown as he does every day.

Some may say at his age he should not be homeless that life’s many chances he left them go by
But they don’t know him or his circumstances he is a person just like you and I
So many of us lacking in compassion beyond our own selves we can’t seem to see
We applaud the wealthy see them as successful and condemn all of those in poverty.

Where did he sleep last night? the thought just chills me
perhaps on park bench in the park nearby
I feel so lucky I’ve a warm home to go to and a comfortable bed on which to lie
Save for circumstance his lot in life might have been my lot
his life story must be one of living hell
But who knows if there is a life hereafter his soul may go to live where angels dwell.

A wintery dawn above the city breaking and the nip of winter in the morning air
And a homeless man uptown is slowly walking a gray bearded man with long gray straggly hair
There’s many more like him around this city people like him nowadays no longer rare
And when compared to him I feel I have been lucky and by circumstance I have been treated fair.

Francis Duggan

 

16 Replies to “Where do we belong to? Sense of PLACE”

  1. Often we don’t realize how much lucky are we to have our parents, a place called “home” and someone who is always there to support us when we feel down…
    Here my poem is…

    Here I am…
    laid on the street
    with nothing to do,
    nothing to eat

    The cold and the wind
    suck my soul…
    I sit on a pile of rags
    impregnated of sadness…

    I want to escape from
    this reality but it isn’t so
    easy to reach a new identity…

    Gosh, you that are in heaven
    come here and take me there
    with you I won’t never be so empty
    I won’t never be so alone

  2. There was a boy,they used to call him “The snow’s son”,
    he used to lie down in a bench,in the cold Siberian winter,never saw the sun.
    He used to stay on a high desolate hill,
    a heavenly place and you mustn’t pay the bill;
    He used to stay there with fields and snow and snow again around,
    he barely looked up to the sky,he usually looked hard at the ground;
    He spent there all his afternoon,
    he went there after school and there he remained until rised the moon.

    Sean had had all from his life:wealth,a family,a large house,
    but in his life he didn’t feel alive.
    When he looked down,eyes lost in the white snow,
    he asked himself who he did really know;
    most of the times bleak thoughts crossed her head ,
    “who I really am?”
    Inside him he had a big void,and even if he breathed it was like he was just dead.
    The death’s angel had already kissed her soul and the cold he felt inside,
    was the same cold,ice you could feel outside.

    When they found him on a December night,he was sound asleep,
    immobile as a sleeping angel,when his mother saw him she felt a wound deep.
    He was in a coma but he was finally able to survive,
    much more than he thought he was attached to his life;
    And the adventure was meaningful to him
    because from nothing something comes into being.
    Her family finally noticed that he did exist,
    and he wasn’t put anymore on the last place of her mum’s list.

    From that day nobody saw him on that bench anymore,
    her mother,happy to have found her son,opened him smiling the house door;
    but he’ll always keep in his mind his terrible sore.
    He said goodbye to Loneliness,for years his only friend
    and said hello toa new life that won’t ever end.

  3. Silvia Ersetti

    Can’t you see it? Can’t you hear it? Can’t you feel its touch on your skin?
    This sensation is when you feel yourself, you feel happy, without enemies or worries. This is when you feel at home, in your OWN place.
    I introduce myself: I’m a traveller, I like calling me a “free soul”.
    I don’t care what you, they, he or she think about, I love my life. I choosed it.
    I don’t belong to anyone and anywhere, the world belongs to me. Every street I walk on, every bridge I cross, every lawn I lie on, every mountain I climb. I call all these “home”.
    I just live the moment, my constant think is “no regreats”. That’s why I left my old life, my planned, boring life. I didn’t enjoy it, and nothing made me surprise. I never tried to say “stop!” or “no!”. Now what make me feel glad is a beautiful and peaceful sunset, a dreamy nightly sky full of stars, a run into a field of sunflowers, a song sang in the rain. And the funny thing is that before I considered these actions stupid, or useless. But the small things, what we ignore every day, flavour our lives.
    Belonging is a difficult and dangerous word to understand for people who have an only point of view. I made my choice about my life-style, and I will never stop screaming and telling that I don’t belong to any person, to any place, but every single person, and every single palce, belongs TO ME.

  4. Home.
    Everyone has a place to belong to.
    The place where you feel protected
    The place where you feel safe
    The place where you feel yourself.
    A palace, a wood, a hut, a street
    Or just a bench…
    Doesn’t matter where it is
    What matters is who you have beside.
    And if you think to have no one with you

    Letizia Bergamasco

  5. ON A GREEN LEAF
    I open my eyes. Everything around me is green and it smells like spring. A soft breeze makes my red wings open and the wind makes them fly. It is really wonderful: nature seems to wake up from an icy hibernation. Every single leaf I see is like an elaborate and detailed piece of painting. The dew is melting and the sun is waking itself up too.

  6. IN MY DRAWER
    It is lying there, in the darkest corner of my drawer. It is really sad because yesterday it lost its soul mate. It cries more and more, but the sorrow doesn’t want to go away. It feels lonely: they used to share every single moment of their lives, but now… it doesn’t know what to do. Oh, poor sock!

  7. SOOOOOOOOOO; our chain story… 😀 I figured I’d just posted here… 😀 it’s really funny, you ought to read it! 😉

    We had been castaways now for what we reckoned to be about 6 weeks. We had been on a sailing trip around the Pacific, visiting the islands of Tonga, Fiji and Samoa as part of a once in a lifetime adventure holiday. Some adventure.
    Our boat, The Wayfarer, had scraped against some rocks as we drew into a narrow bay on an island half way into our journey from Samoa to Fiji.
    The damage did not at first seem too bad, but we later discovered that a tiny leak had sprung neat the keel due to the impact. Whilst sailing outwards the next day, we noticed water in the hold and realized we had a major problem.
    The Wayfarer capsized and sank, but not before we managed to release and climb into the lifeboat. In all the confusion, we lost track of the captain (the only adult on the trip) and so far we have not seen even a trace of him. The lifeboat drifted hazardly for the remainder of that day and well into the night, before we eventually struck land.
    Tired, cold and hungry, we gathered up the supplies we had and set out to explore the island –our new home.

    There were fifteen of us, and all underage.
    The eldest was 17. Yet we had to find some shelter, some ways of gathering food and resources to survive.
    Some of us were enthusiastic. It sounded like an adventure to them. Others were dejected by the loss of captain Findus. We would’ve never been able to eat his fish sticks anymore. So tasty, so inviting…the truth was that he had kidnapped us all, from the near town of Papayalandia, but since he finished his poke balls, he had to use the fish-sticks as balls: and we were happy…
    We even instituted a “circle of the anonymous fish-sticksholic”… that’s why we started crying.
    But suddenly our teardrops turned into chocolate…

    we looked around and we saw that every thing had changed…
    There were gummy bear trees, lollypop flowers, a chocolate river, a peppermint path… and we were all dressed up as candy land characters.
    We started following the peppermint path. After some time we bumped into an odd looking guy…his name was
    Josh. He wore a striped t-shirt and pink trousers. He had long ears and…well, he looked like an Umpa-Lumpa! I looked around: there were dozens, and dozens, of them. But they weren’t threatening. They were all smiling and singing to us! Josh gave me a strange purple bar of chocolate and I didn’t know what to do! Could it be dangerous? I didn’t think so. I accepted it, and tasted that weird chocolate. It was the best chocolate I have ever eaten in my life!

    Josh couldn’t speak, or actually, we spoke different languages, he spoke Umpa-Lumpa language. A language that is based on the language of Nature, so he had to use BODY language in order we could understand what he said. At a certain point he disappeared, but after a while he came back.
    With his right hand he was holding one of that weird fish that live in the deep ocean, the ones that you can see in “Nemo”, and that produce light. Then he clasped my hand and lead us to a dark and grotesque cave.

    Josh sidestepped and another weird guy presented himself: he was Captain Hook, sent by Davy Jones in this Godforsaken island to serve his punishment for having threatened the life of the lost children, the heirs of Davy’s Flying Dutchman.
    Hooked bowed gracelessly, smiling with blackened teeth, the color of his eyes a dark green seaweed color.
    “I, capt’n Hook, want you to swear an oath of loyalty to me and my Umpa-Lumpa, in order to help me restore my prestige among the seven Pirate Lords of the Middle Asia”
    We were hollering with laughter.

  8. My “English poem”
    Learning a language is like…
    Being at the gym with my friends,training hard,sweating,in the end feeling totally drained in energy but you receive a big satisfaction,it’s sometimes hard,ther are moments you would like to surrender but then you go to youtube and you type “Nadia Comaneci”,the greatest gymnast ever and you remember what gymnastic’s all about,is perfection,is gracefulness and you remember of the big smile on your face when an exercise works…
    Learning new words is like…
    Skiing in the mountains,when is snowing and you cannot see the track very well and your goggles are covered in snow…
    Learning grammar is like…
    Learning the theory of an instrument it’s like taking the accordion on your legs and staring at the notes written on the sheet,bored,thinking of what is out there,thinking that you could just give up and there wouldn’t be problems anymore,but then the score reminds you on the years spent learning,it makes you remember of you as a child with that huge accordion on your thin legs and you realize that you cannot just eliminate a part of your life.

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