NYC8539266

Introduction

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to simply walk out of your door one morning and by sun-set that same evening, be faced with the reality that you have no-where to go, no-where to sleep that night (and nights to come), that the door to the place you called “Home” is now locked beyond your control, this is a journal of that voyage. It covers the sorrows, the sadness, the darkness, the helplessness. It also covers the joys, the awesome moments. This journal documents the compassion of humanity and the apathy of humanity. It also may explain why, in a city like New York, where allegedly, there are shelters for the homeless, and subway adverts promote sending the homeless to those shelters, there are, at the very same moments, people sleeping and, in fact, living on the streets, in the parks, in door-ways and any place they can find a place of repose. This is the story of going from the beauty of the beaches to the horrors of the shelter (M51) on 1st Avenue and 29th/30th Streets in New York City. This is the story, with names and emotions. I am documenting this saga and chaging nothing. I am hoping that the vocabulary will not prohibit the existence of this journal. It is integral to the over-all presentation and emotion of this endeavour. A working title: From Bitter-sweet to Bitter I was once angry. I am now bitter. I am not making any attempts at changing that. For comments or other posts, please go directly to the page provided via this link. For contact information, use the same link. An e-mail addresse is provided.

29.

On Monday I slept beneath the stars
under a London Plane.
On Tuesday I showered, fresh and clean
in the midst of a Winter rain.
On Wednesday I woke with a grumbling stomach
I hadn’t eaten in days.
On Thursday my dinner – al fresco but canned,
swiped from a dumpster in starvation’s haze.
By Friday my clothing was soiled and worn
my skin began sinking and hanging on bone.
On Saturday kids came – threw bottles at me
and the policemen kept yelling “Go HOME!”.

Came the dawning of Sunday morning
and all took a turn for the best:
By Sunday evening
just shortly past sun-set
I’d laid down
closed my eyes
for my longed-for and yearned for
Peace…
in my final rest.

#2 Train Flatbush 18h 08.19.04

PLEASE NOTE: The entries on the following pages are candid, matter of fact and blunt. I make no apologies for the language, candour or vocabulary. This is an account of 16 months in a New York City Shelter for Homeless men, not some silly little fabrication of some demented idiot who fancies him/herself an “authority” on the subject matter or who phantasies about “what it would be like to be Homeless”.

It took 16 months to write, in note-books, written whilst on a steel-frame bed in the Shelter, in the streets, on subways, in parks and other places where the “Homeless” are relegated to, to keep away from general society so that we can spare your sensitivities and sensibilities. It took over 2 years to compile in digital format, travelling many miles from boro to boro of NYC, library to library, with 45 minutes at each library… if that much time was even afforded. There are typographical errors. There are grammatical errors. There are bits of time gone missing. But what is here is very much indicative, over-all, of what the subject matter is: Homelessness.

Feel free to leave COMMENTS if you’d like. Or, feel free to join me on Twitter: @NYC8539266

Meanwhile, the best I can hope for is that you learn something from these entries: Homelessness is NOT something that MOST people choose willingly, it is not a “Life Goal”, and, if you look at yourself seriously you’ll know, all too well… This could be YOUR story in a matter of mere moments.

Thank you for your interest and for following along.

jketernal
FOLLOW @nyc8539266 on TWITTER

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