Grant Gilliland
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Springtime
by Grant Gilliland, poet & homeless The sky falls dropwise into the concrete spiciness
garbage and ozone twisting around in nostrils full with other odors of poison and bittersweet days while night drips across drawn shades fantasies of unlived lives swarm into corners like the captions of pictures, the products more of trick photography than of art Headlights on the road swim past, on the rain a molecule at a time the world decomposes into inertia and speed and friction and drag there is my cigarette twenty feet below, still burning with smoke and orange and I wait counting for a raindrop to snuff it, reaching up to seventy before it is done with its hazy death and burned to the filter and I realize that this is no way to measure a life or a death, not even of a cigarette in the springtime showers There can be no metaphors except those we embrace the measure of fulfilment is where we find it casting ourselves too often from second story patios to drown on sidewalks in the night is likely enough for the baser parts but sparely unsatisfying Copyright Grant Gilliland 2014 |
Homecoming
By Orchid Poet Laureate Grant Gilliland on Homelessness Stands so soon my prodigal shadow beneath the green trees like an unripe sky that my eyes wander epileptically lost to memory these places "home" can never be on a riven wall of dead concrete (it has not been more than rock for many years now.) there is space for writing but to judge aright I am helpless long ago I stood in this roofless place and casting thoughts at rude walls like bait once caught a poem of sunset between my teeth who is to cover bareness the wound of time infected stands so soon my formless will upon this fertilest altar And I fear it is me. Copyright 2015 Grant Gilliland |
Poems aren't traditional legal advocacy fare AND we do see a connection -- in fact seeing loose connections is sometimes considered a hallmark of "mental illness." Hopefully, these won't be so loose that they can't be followed.
To spell it out: we think the suffering described by Grant Gilliland in his haunting poem "Springtime" could be alleviated at least in great part with better policies such as Housing as Healthcare.
After that-- it's working with the person/ourselves to build on Strengths & Talents and creatively compensating for weaknesses that may come as unexpectedly wrapped as the Strengths and Talents did.
Of course -- that's what we all need -- it's just more challenging & more interesting when you're neurally diverse.
For more of what we would like to see changed, see below & check out the rest of our website.
To spell it out: we think the suffering described by Grant Gilliland in his haunting poem "Springtime" could be alleviated at least in great part with better policies such as Housing as Healthcare.
After that-- it's working with the person/ourselves to build on Strengths & Talents and creatively compensating for weaknesses that may come as unexpectedly wrapped as the Strengths and Talents did.
Of course -- that's what we all need -- it's just more challenging & more interesting when you're neurally diverse.
For more of what we would like to see changed, see below & check out the rest of our website.