My dear Rant Rave friends. I have done a series of poems on Facebook. If you decide you want read some of them this is the story.
The down and out, invisible man series of poems is about a young man going out into the world and finds he cannot cope. He starts off life on a large slum overspill estate that moved the poor people from London into council housing.
As all the people that were placed their where from different parts of London, gang and turf wars began immediately. This estate was built in the middle of nowhere so the were no jobs, nothing to do and drink became a major problem in the 1970's.
Anyway this very intellegent youn man young man thought if he could move away he may have a chance. But his lack of social experience meant he was leaving all his friends, family and loves. He was leaving his history, his past, his roots.
He gets a good job a nice home, new friends, but there is something missing, his real friends. As he grew older he finds he misses his hometown and becomes depressed and he cannot cope. He loses his new friends his job his home and finds himself out on the street with an addiction for strong drink.
He has the clothes he has on and that is all. He is seventy miles from his old hometown and decides to walk back and try to start again. On this walk he becomes dirty, unwashed and ripe. His hair now grey is long and unkempt and he has grown a beard which is also grey.
So he walks and walks until finally thirty years after leaving his home town he returns. Nobody recognises him, they think he is a vagrant, which he is. He wanders around familiar places and feels that he has at last come home.
So in his long thick overcoat, long grey dirty hair and unkempt beard, he could be anybody, so he just becomes a lonely old vagrant that people cross the road when they see him. This is a true story.
I hope I can do this series from the eyes of a vagrant and give an insight of what it is like on the other side of society.
Please read these poems with an open mind and feel the way the vagrant feels. He has emotions, needs but most of all he wants to say hello to his old friends and family, but cannot because he is too ashamed.
So he watches daily life, in his old hometown lonely, an outcast sense of belonging. He is The Invisible Man