Justin Griffiths

Replacement Poem - The Word by Pablo Neruda, replacements made by Justin Griffiths

The man was found

on the street,
he lived under the dirty bridge, wasting,
and lay still with the night and cars.

Distant and familiar,

silent, silent he lay
from drunk mothers and from uncaring faces,
from houses that had become nightmares,
that had worn out their own sons,
because when innocence took to the street
the boy left and departed
and made other friends and family
to find his home once again.
And that's why the story is this:
this is the man that joins us
with the hollow heart and with no remorse
of lost purpose that garner no feeling.

Still the man wastes

with the new light
That shines
with hope and movement.
It broke
from the night
but even now there is no stirring
that whimpers with a weakened cry
from that man,
the tired
man died:
perhaps it was just a moan, a sigh,
but its echo still fades and fades.

Later on, emptiness takes the man.

It lingered stagnant and dwelled with him,
everything was silence and stillness:
desolation, futility, despair,
disparity, corruption, death:
the man took on all the misfortunes
and distilled misery with hate
in its smoldering decay.

City thought, invisible, ignore

of quick glance and muttered word,
ingrained mentality that divorces
the reality of the world:
it is here that cruelty was created by
the entirety of the human society
and not to see is to kill among men:
words reach out to the ears,
the viewer sees without turning their heads:
suddenly the city is whole.

We leave the man and depart

through it, as if it were
only a paltry detail,
his features disgust me and we turn away
at each meeting of chance:
we mutter and we are
and throughout the city of night,
without thinking, we court ignorance.

We step over the man, sparing

Not a step or narrow glance,
in that we forge

the steel of apathy

or absolute indifference,

eternal font of all wounds,

and hate and misery and despair
give listen to my words
because the man is dead
and colder now: it is time,
the time that reaches its zenith,
and thus its echoing is complete:
crys give answer to the calls,
Actions to the actions,
and bring purpose to him
The meaning of the poem changed from one of hope and an uplifting feeling, to that of hopelessness and
despair. I tried to make the poem tell the story of a homeless man who dies under a bridge with no one
knowing or noticing. Its supposed to highlight how invisible the plight of the homeless is to society. And
how if people were to notice they would do more the try to change things.

Postcard Story
Homelessness in Utah.

Homelessness in Utah is a problem that affects everyone. No one agrees on what to do about it, or that it
even is a problem in the first place. Many organizations have taken steps to reduce homelessness, but it
is still prevalent. These same organizations and programs then use their results to claim that
homelessness has been cured. That it is no longer a problem. This is not the case.