Hundred Yards

It's been a bit since I posted a poem on here, so here's one I wrote in November.

Hundred Yards
by Wred Fright

Yesterday
Literary conference
Renaissance Hotel
Downtown Cleveland
A fancy place in a not so fancy city
From the looks I got from the staff and guests
I judge I must be just on the boundary of respectable
Up the elevator because I couldn't find the stairs to
Meeting rooms named for robber barons
Rockefeller
Others who didn't do so well, but well enough
In the meeting room, the literary critics talked of human suffering.
I had to wonder
Did they experience it firsthand or just read about it in stories?
Walking to the hotel
I passed some human suffering
Homeless guy sleeping
Steam grate
People pay a lot to stay at the hotel
But they could sleep for free across the street
True, there's no room service
No complimentary Starbucks Coffee
But you don't need a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the doorknob
You could freeze to death and no one might notice until spring
It's a free country or at least a freeze country.
It's a great nation or at least a grate nation.
Only one hundred yards or so was the distance between hotel and grate
Was that the difference between rich and poor in America, or at least in Cleveland?
Only a hundred yards
But a hundred yards that can take a lifetime to cross.

12 November 2007