61. The Beggar Boy

61.
The Beggar Boy

“Spare a thought, as you go on your way
for the one in front of you today.
Every day, you spend a penny,
spare one, for one who hasn’t any.”

Craig sat outside Drury Street car park, a cardboard cup in his hand.
I spoke to him, he spoke to me, we spoke to one and other (this is like a Chuck Berry song).
He said it was his first time there, he usually sat at the Molly Malone statue, where he wrote his poems on the ground.
He recited one of his poems.
It was good, he has a good vocabulary, it was poetic.
“Don’t only write about being poor”, said I.
“I write about anything”, he said.

I asked him did he write down his poems, he said no, he has them all in his head.
I said he might forget them.

“I write poems”, I said, “but I haven’t written very many, I might write more.”
I spoke my Metaphor poem.
(He called them poems, I call them verses or rhymes). He liked my poem.

He said the rain washed his poems off the street.
(He could write a poem about that – “Written in tears and washed away by rain,” or whatever).

I said I could write a poem for him, it would be rude, and spoke the words first spoken here.
He said, did you make that up just now? I said yes.
He said he spends hours on his poems (his are longer).

“Did you like that bit about spending a penny?” I asked.
“When I was young, you used to have to spend a penny, it cost you something, now it is free.
That is one of the good things about today that is better than the old days”.

“They took them all away,” he said.
I said “The good news is they are free, the bad news is they aren’t there any more”.

“You should write your poems down and send them to The Big Issue,” I said.
“They want poems from people like you, to prove you are human beings”.

Writing his poems on the street, what could be more poetic?