Steamboats For Company

Anybody with a bit of sense would wait until the storm has passed before setting out to sea in a boat .

But what of the sailors already at sea caught up in a gale .

The huge watery mountain at times is the test for a good ship and crew .

It may be said that never is there a storm that has no quell .

It is also true that there are many big ships that end up having small days while some small ships have big days .

It all about elements and conditions that suit .

There is never a calm in a storm that has not been made welcome .

Where is the calm for those cargos of lost souls afloat on a hopeless sea . Abandoned to the demon drink on a voyage with of side effects .

The crew of heartless derelicts are told not rock or to wreck the boat...steady as she goes .

Some people take it while other people jump overboard .

The Captain is no stranger to a voyage up stream without a paddle and like a stranger on the shore he has often been .

Who can relate to a drowning man?

Only one who cannot swim or maybe another who is there to save him .

Who would see him drowned without throwing him a life line ?

A stranger on the shore too far away to help or a cruel monster with no heart .

If you have ever felt like a stranger on the shore then read on .

If you have ever tried to save a drowning man read on .

Steamboats For Company
A Poem By Paul McCann

It’s a far better place I think,

To be on a steamboat under the drink .

With Davy Jones and all his men ,

Peacefully under the watch of heaven .

Free at last and better off dead .

No sound of hangovers inside the head :

God’s in heaven and all is well .

Steamboats for company under the swell .

I would like to take you into a commune of homeless derelicts just a short walk away from Waterloo Station in London .

The Bullring by name home of life’s castaways in an ocean of tears and regrets . Cold concrete is a hard place for a bed .

Cardboard keeps out the cold . In 1989 cardboard city was enigmatically erected under the grey concrete sky with a tumbled down over spilt landscape of humans surrounded by a city that drew more and more people into its bleak portrait .Within few miles of the Bullring what a contrast there was in view to life .

From the bright lights of Leicester Square a huge magnet drew in the yuppie urban class into its arms . Party people danced the night away and echoed out the sounds of hip hop .

Being upwardly mobile they converged in multitudes at acid houses all over Central London . This new attraction brought a raging night life in the jungle of the wild West End .

At this time I was not greedy. Just one of the needy and under fed .

I was one of the poor and oppressed majority . Many of us lived with unwanted and neglected prisoners of a society where anger grew towards the unfairness of homelessness people .

If you could have seen the sad sight you would have been wrapped up in the culture shock that ruled the residents of cardboard city .

Most of us felt the cold reality that no one cared .

Cardboard city was ten minutes walk from Buckingham Palace but may as well have been a million . The city streets were littered with people who slept in doorways as all the homeless refuges were full .

Some lucky people found squats, others slept in parks and on buses . I had met so many people who were abandoned themselves to alcohol and I was able to write down some of their stories.

Some of the characters of cardboard city were victims of circumstance with hungry bellies filled with fire and anguish .

Some of the older ones had an innocence and hopeless charm about them . Most had a hard edge because of the bitter plight of feeling downtrodden .

In London every day there were always muggings and bashings .

The finger was always pointed towards the residents of cardboard city .. Bombarded by the hate factor, the poor and helpless people of cardboard city felt unjustly treated by individuals who seemed united in their fight to destroy any last strands of human dignity that remained .

There was a feeling of hopelessness and yet everyone bonded together like a family . It was uncanny .

Sometimes our greatest strength comes when we are on our knees . Sometimes we find insight after we have been tortured by the pains of hunger and when we are at the mercy of others who wish to make our lives a dark and miserable existence .

The people of cardboard were about as low as you could get .

It was not a matter of survival. It was basically daily existence . The daylight hours brought the constant reminder of our unshaven and dirty faces . The clothes we wore seemed a little worse for the wear and it was impossible to keep hidden the inner self from further scrutiny .

During the day cardboard city was like an open wound that went under close inspection . Passers by never got too close just in case they were to get infected . Often they would run away in horror if one of the residents spoke to them . They feared being asked for money or even worse getting mugged .

Daytime hours disappeared and the darkness fell without a candle to light or a flashlight to keep the shadows away . When the dark night came down I found my self surrounded by the shadow world .

In this place people clung on to their existence even though it seemed all hope had left . In this place of suffering we all held on to our thoughts like gulls grabbing their daily bread in an empty ocean .

Steamboats were a hard breed . They had to swim the tide .

They all had their own deep oceans and at night where they lay .

Cardboard boxes or in doorways . Squats or park benches .

Because of numbers it was safer to sleep in cardboard city than in the doorways of shops .

Everyone had a dream to cling on to .

They were the survival ropes .

In the dark night there is a noise called city life . It mingles with the inner sounds of the soul . Somewhere out there in the silence of this vast cosmic consciousness the essence of life just happens to find where we are and relate back to us the wonder of it all .

What a wonderful thing it is to find out that we are just a very small speck in an ocean of thoughts that meander across the universe .

Sometimes within a great conscious mystery the reality of knowing ourselves lies between logic and something unexplainable .

This understanding of the soul makes us an individual .

I discovered myself there in this dark night it was a lonely picture that looked back at me .

I was able to see that others around me also embraced my hurt and rejection because they also understood this place where I was at and so that is why I understood the factors and behind the walls of injustice that imprisoned the souls of London’s lonely people .

Londons Lonely People

A poem by Paul McCann.

They're locked up in empty rooms, prisoners inside a shell . Prisoners within corner blocks, they're locked up in a cell .

The beggars cry with empty guts,but no one hears that sound .
Busker's breaking the silence singing in the underground .

Everyone is lonely without friends to relate to.
Someone is dying,
someone is crying,maybe it's you .

London's lonely people the hungry homeless breed .
Indeed.London's lonely people passing by,
don't take any heed .

London is such a lonely place,some people just pass through .
Prisoners in their empty rooms with hearts broken in two .

And so each day comes and each day goes and all that lay within was an empty space .

For the Steamboat the only thing that could fill that empty space was a bottle . Sometimes one bottle wasn’t enough so it took another and another until the day was done .

Company was a big part of the void and the steamboats journey became a shared experience enjoyed by others .

The sad thing was the drink never filled the void it just made it less empty. I believe God places a void in all of us . It is a void that only he can fill . Some try to fill it with alcohol or drugs . Some use the material things of this world to fill the void but it is impossible to ever feel satisfied by any of that . I have known millionaires who have had everything they want and more and yet they are never happy . There is always some else they want .

That something else is Gods love and for many they can never discover it because so many other things are blocking it out .

The void is a space between me you and God .

A mirror loop structure by Paul McCann

Always and forever is God within man and woman

Soul and body the heart and mind .

The grace of receiving a wonder of presence or occasion .

An unexplainable something beyond understanding .

Pathways overgrown in mystery beyond time In hanging gardens .

Secret wisdoms seeds sewn .

From things unseen are faith in deed and action .

God is good how true it is .

Miracles are there when God is commanding .

Commanding is God when there are miracles .

Is it true how good God is .

Action and deed in faith are unseen things from sewn seeds.

Wisdoms secret gardens

hanging in time beyond mystery in overgrown pathways .

Understanding beyond something unexplainable .

An occasion or presence of wonder .

A receiving of grace .

The mind and heart .

The body and soul .

Woman and man within God is forever and always .

By P McCann.Ó

At night the subways of London’s underground closed and as winter approached the streets became cold and desolate . Even though the Bullring was more like a battle zone it was better than being isolated as a homeless person on the outer edge of things .Many though it was wise to keep within the confines of the Bullring .

Anyone who ventured outside of the Bullring brought their own series of events . Once you left the Bullring you were usually forgotten about . The situation of homelessness was growing worst each day .

In the Bullring the numbers grew and a cardboard box became a luxury item for some to have .

The mobile van that brought hot soup ran the risk of getting ransacked at times . Alas for all who missed out on a paper cup of broth :

The sun came through in the morning again as the people from the Bullring made their way to the pavements to beg for spare change from the passers .

The first rays of the morning sun were like a touch of heaven on numb hands and frozen feet .

For many of the homeless begging became a regular way of life but problem because of the general attitude the public it became dangerous and difficult .

Hard heads had moved in to the Bullring and the small community were being commanded and led like lambs to the slaughter house .

Like some mad dogs foaming at the mouth the new rulers of the Bullring roamed around picking on anyone who was weak .

These mad masters of drunks were control freaks that should have been kicked out the first day they arrived . From time to time serious fights erupted . It was a dog eat dog existence and every scrap of food was fought for .

Every cigarette and every drop of brew was shared and divided up . Sometimes a hero would rise from the Bullring like Alec from Glasgow .

He was permanently half doped up and half drunk but besides that he was a great artist . Alec took on the mad masters of the Bullring in brawl after brawl . It was all he knew how to do .

Alec carried many scars and bruises .

He also carried a knife and a thick Scottish accent .

He could carve up your nose at the drop of a hat and forget what it was that made him do any of that .

Though his hands drove a deadly blow to some at the same time that very same hand could do such beautiful work with crayons and pencils . There was one day Alec went too far . He took one of the bully boys and threw him into the Thames and later on paid the price for his deed . Alec was thrown out from the Bullring to fend for himself .

Thats how it is . A kind of code exists .

Break it and you're gone .

The End