Street Alley Rats

Street Alley Rats

These days I'm standing inside the cracks.

Where the alley’s embrace

street cats,

Where rats scatter to and fro

Empty trash bins

Savagely scampering for bits and pieces of

Food that restaurants don’t sell

So they toss it out

because you can’t give it to the homeless man

that sits in that same alley where those rats crawl beneath him because it isn't legal.

For what is it all made for? I don't know.

I'm like a blind driver, behind the wheel of a black car-

cruising through a sea of congested automobiles,

My hood riding up another Angelenos bumper-

Stuck in traffic pretending I have

a place I need to get to

because if I don't

my future ends.

No career, no more money.

It all ends.

‘Cause money makes the world go ‘round

At least that's what Liza Minnelli sings

In “Cabaret.”

And after twenty-eight years I’m stuck with the idea

That love really is all we have at the end of the day-

that this crazy illusion is more than a game.

But my neighbor's screams bring me back to reality.

To this state we call humanity.

Reminding me that it is here where we live-

or at least pretend to.

So I'm like a rat in a rat race-

Beneath a blue sky,

Scampering like the ones in the alley’s

With the homeless man by their side,  

But somehow I'm different,

We’re different because

We deem ourselves civilized,

Yet we still run the race.