OUTSIDE IN WINTER



They freeze outside on winter nights
They walk out in the rain,
A furrow marks a grassy verge
Where a dying man has lain.

Outside in Melbourne’s winter
The homeless live and die,
No friends remain to mourn them
No loved ones left to cry.

We do not try to help them
We leave them to their fate,
By the time we act – or even move
We find it’s much too late.

They die outside in winter
And in truth, we do not care,
We pass them in the freezing streets
And wish they were not there.

Outside in Melbourne’s winter
As icy winds do blow,
We spy a sea of street folk
Whose lives do ebb and flow.

Ebbing in the winter cold
As Antarctic winds do howl,
When life outside is ever hard
And the weather is ever foul.

It’s a foul and evil universe
For street folk living rough,
But rich folks in their mansions say
”Life is not too tough!”

But for the cold and lonely
Those without a hearth or home,
The wintertime is like a sword
That lances to the bone!

THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

About this poem

A poem about street people and the horrors of homelessness, particularly in winter.

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Written on July 20, 2008

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on July 17, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

59 sec read
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Quick analysis:

Scheme xaxa Bcdc dexe bfxf Bgxg xhxh xixi xxxx xxx
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 993
Words 199
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Phil Roberts

I turn 65 on the 31st of January 2022. I love cats, rock music, and horror fiction and poetry more…

All Phil Roberts poems | Phil Roberts Books

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