Government creates more homeless people.

 Today the government's cap on welfare benefits comes is into force.  The government's own Department of Work and Pensions estimates that some 88 000 families will have their housing benefits slashed by an average of £2 000 a year (that's £40 a week).  Many will be unable to pay their rent and are likely to become homeless.  It is estimated that between a quarter and half a million children are likely to be affected.  (Figures from this article by Aditya Chakraborty)

During the summer I met an artist and poet, Paul Clark,  who had been working not with, but among, some homeless people.  He had spent some time restoring a cast-iron rose window in a listed building being used as a rescue centre for homeless men. He told me: "I'd take extra sandwiches and have my lunch-break  with them; listening.  And bit by bit I heard their stories, recording their tales and memories  in the form of this poem, called: The Shadow People."

I found the last three stanzas of his poem very moving and asked Paul's permission to put them on this blog.  He readily gave his agreement but insisted that the the poem should be be seen as a whole,  the earlier stanzas contrasting the rural experience with the urban one.

So here it is: 

The Shadow People

Droning ‘cross a field, away beyond

                the hedgerow flowers

Tedding  straw  - tomorrow’s bales

                a tractor counts its hours

On wings of wind is tinny music

                snatched out of its cab

Tuneless whistling in pursuit

                is muffled grey and drab

’Longside the field a shadow weaves

                a deeper pattern of light

No puddles ripple or briers cling

                to this early being of night

Blackbird cackle, rabbits thump

                ascending skylarks sing.

It stoops, it hunches, walks upright

                unseen from brush to thicket

A shadow on the undergrowth –

                is lost and past the snicket

The driver’s eyes are locked and glazed

                As up and down he treads

His mind has gone, it’s far away

with Rosie in the snug

Humid warmth with pints of ale

and embers on the rug.

Wraith-like it waits and watches

while the roaring drone goes by

Steps in the light is gone ag’in 

                the flicker of the eye.

Beyond the stream and in the bracken

                silent, looking down

A wary roebuck , nostrils flaring

                watches on the ground.

Cupped hands stoop beside the water,

                sip, a thirst to quench

Sitting, sighs of resignation,

                fallen tree a bench.

Shadows dancing with the trees

                a dappled figure make

An old young man ill dressed and stubbled ,

                slumped his rest to take
Before tonight a barn or byre 

                will make his day complete.

The wary folk of field and forest 

                watch this wraith go by

Tractor parked the driver homeward

                ’neath a setting sky

Behind the bales planking rattles

                swinging gently stop

Shuffling through the straw to reach 

                the tractor still and hot.

Arthritic fingers  grasp the smokestack 

                wrapping tightly ‘round

Body draped warm engine cowling 

                making not a sound

Tired and lonely, bales surrounding

                sleeps and fades away

A city’s streets are all the same

                when you have nowhere to go

Lying in your doorway

                watch the ebbing human flow

Leave the city still and empty

                to the homeless and the dregs

Circulation slowing ‘til

                you cannot feel your legs

People look the other way,

                why should they have to care?

You’re not in their reality

                and so, you’re just not there

Pulling from a bottle

                in a screwed-up paper bag.

The clocks are chiming midnight

                 and you’re far too cold to shiver

Lying like a corps that’s just been

                dragged out of the river

Drunks have had their fun

                and gone off, staggering home to bed

With luck or hypothermia 

                in the morning you’ll be dead.

Feel the numbing splintering cold

                of winter through the bones

Life on the street’s a torture

                when you haven’t got a home.

A police cell or a hospital,

                 a hostel bed or morgue

For God’s sake roll on Giro day

                when nanny State will deign

The milk of human kindness

                to anaesthetise the pain.

The pain of arthritis,

                the pain of being forgot

The pain of being pissed upon

                the pain of being shot

By farmers’ rock-salt cartridge

                and kids with airguns too

The pain of cheap raw cider

                as it rots your guts right through

So when you’re up the bar next

                to get another beer

Say "Cheers!" to  oblivion, and

                the pain of being here.

Maybe someone from the government  will read this poem, or similar,  and recognise  that benefits need to be paid according to need rather than a figure to humour the tabloids.

A concurrent  approach would be to build more houses and, in the meantime,  re-introduce rent controls and so limit the windfalls accruing to buy-to-let landlords