Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Charity Fatigue


Charity Fatigue 

Actually I do feel like a beggar from time to time, in fact when I mentioned to an acquaintance recently that I was taking on a challenge for charity this year she said,

 “Oh not again, you’re always collecting, I have got charity fatigue”! Well I have just looked it up and it appears to have been in 2010 that I last had a charity stint. Apart from a collecting box in our office that we offer to people who get me to send emails for them or give them some wrapping materials or take in some goods, or something else to beg or borrow. This is why this choice as today’s little ode.

So if A. You are not suffering, ‘Charity Fatigue’. Or B. You like the poem a little bit; this is the link for the effort I am making to help children with life limiting illnesses.

Or if you would like to see a few more of my humble scribblings, as an insight into my strange little mind (I think we all agree about that). www.dafbelt.blogspot.co.uk

Beggars 

People seem to ignore beggars on the whole
As they wander past the down town shops
A beggar by a doorway or propping up a wall
How few of us even look’s at them, or stops 

“Have you got any spare change please”,
They ask, holding a cup, a pot, a hat, in place
They can see you are loathed to touch them
That much is written all over your uppity face 

The argument against is always the same
They’ll only spend it on drugs or drink
Isn’t that what you say to yourself?
Isn’t that what you deep down think? 

What if, when it comes down to it, it’s true?
What if your whole fifty pence goes in a trice
With the rest he has gleaned that day
And spent on continued ruin against all advice 

Understanding this widely held attitude
Is totally beyond anything in my mind
Don’t tell me you’d choose to be this man
Beg in the street, a bottle in hand to find 

Nobody aims to live that sort of way
Once a life has turned so horribly sour
You don’t choose to smoke dog ends
Or pizza from a waste bin devour 

Is this really what you think is true
Or could it all be heavens simple test?
Help a man or woman get through one day
Are you so much better or he worse than the rest?

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