Why give to the mighty charitable organizations who produce very colourful glossy and expensive documents by the tons, as their "presentation cards" - all destined for the rubbish bin, a virtual ecological disaster - in order to entice contributions from the public who, however, manage by the same token to avoid having to pay taxes?

Limerick crochetés: Once a band of non-hearing sans abri*

[Why give to the mighty charitable organizations who produce very colourful glossy and expensive documents by the tons, as their "presentation cards" - all destined for the rubbish bin, a virtual ecological disaster - in order to entice contributions from the public who, however, manage by the same token to avoid having to pay taxes?]

Once a band of non-hearing sans abri*
Camped on the banks of a highway free
Full score years stopped traffic
Begged at lights electric
Police scrapped their dear home sans country

Held on to rubbish rolls quilts rags these gents
While township lords robbed them of their tents
Down where reinforced slabs
Pylons concrete bridge sags
To nurse their punctured pride clogged-up vents

All day all night long year in year out
The crunch of tires on tarmac clout
Their senses ear-drums numb
Drive them sick deaf and dumb
Yet none up high see why they hold out

None see them cook none see them strip wash
Morning day and night wrapped up in their mush
Tipsy turvy happy
For them our world’s at sea
Espy passers-by their eyes in ambush

Yet sleep they the sleep pure in spirit
But those in power who at them spit
Would put’em in HLM*
Blot them out overwhelm
Insomniac quiet sure’ll kill’em no bit !

Notes:
• "sans abri” : French for “destitute, those without shelter”
• “HLM”: French abbreviation for “tenement flats of the lowest social scale”

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2018