Children of the Sewers
Amid the excrement of Jesuits,
The shit of priests and prelates they survive,
The garbage-eaters, living upon their wits,
Down in the dank, dark city sewers. They live
Like rats, close to the oozing walls, methane
And noxious odours their environment
At dawn and dreadful dusk, hunger and pain
Filling the void between each day's ascent
Into bedazzlement, each night's eclipse
Of light and life. With hope already gone,
They forage for mandragora for their lips
And sniff from toxic glue oblivion,
These wretched, human rodents. Bogota's
Much the same way as any Third World city,
Where from the sewers you cannot glimpse the stars
And from the stars descends no stream of pity,
No sweetness, sherbert, love or sugared candies,
No comfits for the Children of the Andes.
Norman Bissett
This poem first appeared in Let's Shout About It.
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