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Monday, April 22, 2024

Cruel and Usual

 

Robes from limos parse the cruise packet offers, the hunting excursions for the extended family, stock tips from unregistered numbers, and put their ballpoint pens to the temple in pensive pose for the oil crayon depictions. 


Beyond scrutiny, they decide if a freezing woman can use a blanket to stay alive in winter. 


Wouldn't she be better off in jail, they debate, with a job sewing for outsourced labor? The robes have underwear, it comes cheap. $1.19 an hour should keep her in tampons she buys at our prison shopping depot. 


That old man, his van parked outside, running a few blocks for the engine heat. What an eyesore. Hell be warmer, he'll be cared for in prison, and we pull no punches when it comes to health, or tuna fish casserole on Sundays. 


Millions of new prison cots at $463 a night, just imagine the kickbacks, the robes fantasize, the accidentally clicked ballpoint drawing scribbles across the made-up powdered brows. Dissenting opinions by a few will wash one hand while the gauntlet grabs. 


It's more humane, sorting electronic parts, 3 squares per day and free laundry for the dirtless life. Bible class in the library will earn you two cigarettes, too. It's super humane, better than a tent under an awning at the sporting goods outlet, in front of the steak house. 


___ 



Near the swing set, two tons of

Fresh chipped wood invites play, 

Safety: come swing and laugh. 

A towering trunk only an acorn toss away has a fort, limbs stacked and leaned into a hideaway. 

Imagination runs from one 

To the other, childhood, we experience and vicariously

Relive. Sunlight and rain, moonlight and heat, wind chips away. 

We'll remake it he whispers 

To his friend, we'll make it awesome.  


____ 


Almost storage access time, wait behind the 80s cargo van 

A mid aged man and older guy chat 

Getting some morning rays out front 

"Guess how much  fer 5 days 

At the disney hotel? $10,000. That's two grand a day ( he's proud to share.) Of course it includes tickets." 

He gets in the van, opening gate.

"It's just around the corner, " directing the driver to his unit. 

Amazing. Aladdin and Swiss Family Haunted Goldmine awaits, just gotta move the bbq grill real quick... 

Pinch me I must be dreaming 




"the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals ruled that 

Grants Pass could not enforce local ordinances

 that prohibit homeless people “from using a blanket, pillow, or cardboard box for protection from the elements” 

 – a decision that applies across the nine western states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.  "


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/22/homelessness-us-supreme-court-case

"Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? 

 Where are they supposed to sleep?  

Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping?” Sotomayor asked.


“This is a complicated policy question,” Evangelis responded.


“What’s so complicated about letting someone, somewhere, sleep with a blanket in the outside if they have nowhere to sleep?” Sotomayor said.


The court’s conservative justices, who comprise the majority, seemed receptive to the city’s arguments. 




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