Our mayor and city council know what to do
The county supervisors and talk show hosts too
Budget measure HHH we Angelinos passed
Costing billions, homelessness would end at last
There were 57,000 unhoused in L.A. last year
Now it’s 68,000, growing with elections near
The garment district downtown and all of skid row
Are squalid tent camps where filth and despair flow
From the Valley, to Hollywood, out to the beach
Huddled in parks, under bridges, hills out of reach
Some scream and curse, drugged or drunken
Others silent and still, bodies broken, spirits sunken
They’re bad for business, they spread disease!
Will our elected officials do something? Please!
Neglected, abused, mentally ill
There’s really no urgent civic will
Some may receive disability pay
Enough for liquid comfort, but a room? No way
A lifelong Angelino, I feel enraged and defeated
For I see my town by how our worst off are treated
5/31/22
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.