Signs of the Times

Dossier

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Article

across North America
hand held pieces of cardboard
crudely lettered
or painstakingly printed
express
the lived poetry of poverty

no home
no job
no money
no food
and name
preventable diseases
untreated
because of inability
to pay for relief or healing

signs

reaching from the Atlantic
to the Pacific

please help
God bless you
have a good day
God bless
please help

signs

call to us
beg
plead
pray
for a meagre
but heroic
response

give to all who ask

but they want my money for alcohol
they want my money for drugs

give to all who ask

but they want my money for alcohol
they want my money for drugs

give to all who ask

but there's too many
of these
signs that disclose
and subvert
by their very understatement
the social extermination
of human beings

their sheer physical presence
their faces
their eyes
their likeness
pierce our entertainments
pierce our wastefulness
our priorities
our conscience

a blind man
homeless
holds a sign
and sees through us
so deeply and clearly
we can't stand it

and demand
public space be made private
and these living signs
driven elsewhere
anywhere
nowhere
by more bylaws
by more police

these living signs
anger
they terrify
because they reflect
our own possibilities
in this anti0human economic system

no food
no job
no money
no home

so we need more zones of exclusion
more censorship of human beings
who hold these signs of the times
because
they hold them
for us
all
Bud Osborne has been a social activist for nearly 40 years. He was instrumental in founding harm reduction organizations like Vancouver Area Network of Drug Useres, and Grief to Action. He has published five books of poetry - here is a poem from his latest book Signs of the Times (available for purchase through Anvil Press in Vancouver)