Tuesday, September 21, 2010

SHELTER.Colin Ward's poem about squatting

Even the late English Anarchist writer/theorist/housing rights advocate Colin Ward supported the act of squatting abandoned buidlings. After World War 2, he returned to England from serving in the Army, Ward joined the post-war squatters movement, where war veterans took over houses left empty by the draft. This hidden English history Ward participated in can be found in his book called "Cotters And Squatters" [ 2004, Five Leaves ].


Enjoy.


--Dee Allen.
(A)/(E)/(V)



SHELTER
_________

Master locks on steel chains
Boards on windows & doors
An old building's interior is bare
Down to the stairs & floors


Neighbourhood eyesore
So much, it brings tears
This domicile sat unused
For untold years

Emptier than a tomb
While a sickened man sleeps outside
The cold, hard sidewalk against his back----
His last abide

Lone cadaver on concrete,
This classist system's target
Because a single-minded landlord
Kept this building off the market

That could provide shelter
For indigent, landless masses
Instead, it provides shelter
For a wealthy skinflint's taxes

In hard economic times,
There's landless folks for sure
That building's chained & boarded up----
Nothing that boltcutters & crowbars can't cure.
__________________________________________
W: 4.17.10
[For Colin Ward--1924-2010.]

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