How often in London do you try to guess about anothers life,?

The loves, the hates, the joys, the sorrows, facial lines caused by strife,

I saw them in High Holborn they stood out from the jostling crowd,

These are the poor, the homeless, the lost and the proud.

They stood out from the rest, like a sore thumb, because they were poor,

Poor is a relative thing, but real poverty is a desert island, no hope any more,

And if this desert island gives niether food nor shelter, nor light,

It shows life failures at this game at getting and keeping it right.

If a man shouted in pain above the thunder of the traffic, rife,

He could not have been more spectacular in his miserable, nothing, life.

A man slouched along a few yards in advance of an old woman lame,

Life knocking him to the ground, getting up, and beaten down again,

He wore grey rags, and his feet could be seen through dirty old split shoes,

And although not completely pathetic, his life was ruled by booze.

He was the sort of man you would gladly give him change,

But this would be to ease your conscience, of seeing something so strange.