EMERGING SHADOWS
© Tom McILveen
Winner, Sutherland Shire Poetry Competition 2023, Sutherland NSW.
“Come and walk beside me brother, come and take a stroll with me,
on a road less travelled and less understood.
Let me show you things that ordinary people never see
on suburban streets beyond their neighbourhood.
Come and walk a mile in battered shoes with soles as bare as those
who emerge like hungry shadows from the street.
They are vacant eyed and draped in someone else’s shabby clothes,
wearing someone’s battered shoes upon their feet.
If you stop awhile and gaze into the pool of vacant eyes,
you may see a memory that stirs within;
for behind the faded curtain and the dingy, grey disguise,
there’s a soul that bears an unforgotten sin.
If you look a little deeper you will see emotion there ̶
a reflection of what was and could have been.
Could it be regret or shame concealed behind that vacant stare,
for the boy who ruled the streets at seventeen?
He was once a fearless hooligan – the king of Sydney Town,
and was known from Caringbah to La Perouse.
Though he’d had no throne or royalty, he’d worn the kingdom’s crown,
till he’d hocked it for amphetamines and booze.
If you drop a coin into his jar he’ll conjure up a smile
and begin to blow a tune for you and dance.
With his rusty old harmonica he’ll warble for while,
and then disappear into another trance.
Come and meet the quirky lady who emerges right on cue
from behind a shroud of plastic bags and lace.
She was once a wife and mother, and a ballerina too...
in another world, another time and place.
You might think that she’s peculiar, a little odd perhaps...
in her battered shoes and multicoloured rags.
She is scavenging for cigarettes and rotting kitchen scraps,
from a garbage filled with empty cans and bags.”
They reminded me of someone from my early childhood days...
could it be a faded memory of me?
Or perhaps another shadow seen emerging from the haze –
a reflection of what was and what could be?
I have walked a mile in battered shoes and tasted bitter wine,
on forgotten streets beyond my neighbourhood.
I have walked with those whose journeys were on steeper paths than mine –
on the road less travelled and least understood.
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