Harsh Times

Knocking on my window
The shadows of lost children
Trying to break through
Or is it just the rain
Or is it just the rain
Trying to break through
Wash away the glass
That keeps me dry and warm
That keeps me safe not sorry
While the wind knocks down the chimneys
And lifts the mossy slates

Knocking on my window
Knocking on my window
The homeless unloved children
Rough sleepers lodged in doorways
Beggars in the subways
Hands cupped for gifts of money
Hands bruised and red with cold
Shadow children pleading
While their matches flare then die

I turn over in my bed
To try to get some sleep
But all the time the knocking
But all the time the knocking
Shadow children knocking
Trying to break through
Trying to break through
The gypsy in the ditch
The orphan in the doorway
The match girl in the snow

Tonight beneath the bridges
Huddled into cardboard boxes
The homeless watch the rain
The homeless watch the rain
While I lie snug in bed
Warm as toast and safe not sorry
But all the time the knocking
But all the time the knocking
The shadows of lost children
Trying to break through


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
March 12th. 2018.
In recent bitter weather I saw a homeless man at the entrance to London Bridge Tube Station trying to keep warm by striking matches. People were passing by staring deep into their magic phones but seeing nothing. We may be technologically advanced but morally we are stuck deep into the sticky quagmire of inequality that polluted the 19th. century. We may have wi-fi and high-fi and messages stored in the air but in other ways we are stuck in the 1840`s. Dickens is still a contemporary writer.