Work in progress

In Chartres we did a major wash of clothes at a local laundrette, which took a little time and was an education in itself.

It was also the source of a poem, as a man stood around the outside the launderette begging. The whole manner of his begging and the familiarity of the person gradually nagged this poem out of me. It is based on the man but is about other people I have known – clearly, I know nothing of the actual man in question....

It is a first draught – clearly a work in progress and may end up nothing like its present form – sorry of it seems to ramble....

By the Launderette, he stood

Across from the old house
with its carved wooden statue
worn and ragged with six hundred years of wear,
I watch as below it he walks the width of the street
his casual jacket and scarf
failing to hide the desperation
raging through him;
his knee trembles
when he stops in one place for long

So he walks, and leans against a wall
he steps casually across the road
and stops a stranger for some change.
His almost debonair looks
are soon stripped away
by that pleading voice
needing that handout of loose cash

It’s only a few Euros, he says
That’s all I need, you know!

And the old lady who passes
remembers him when he sat in a pram
his mother a skinny young thing
not of an age to really know
as her son’s young face
eagerly accepted the attention of strangers.

She does not give him money
but gently pats his shoulder
as she has done
for most of his life.
If he could remember, or even notice
he would call her Aunt Hettie
though she is no one’s aunt
and anyway, she is resigned to his vagueness
and unseeing looks.

It’s Saturday morning
and the market is buzzing;
people are walking up the hill
with empty baskets and full purses
but little of this cash goes to him
as he hides his trembles
and glances into the launderette
where I sit watching him.
His blank stare shows me
he has my measure – I will not give him cash
but he does not see me as a friend,
and when I walk out
he is not looking
he does not hear me
does not recognise me
or remember who I am
that we walked to school together
twenty years or so ago.

It’s just the drumming in the veins
and the pounding in his brow
that keeps him going, now.
Nothing else can get in the way
and, until that thing is sorted
that hunger is reduced,
we are just binary to him
A yes, or a no.

I shake his limp hand
as he looses interest
and crosses to someone
who really is a stranger.