Vacant! By Nigel A JAMES
Stephen Spender
Although
this poem by Stephen Spenser has no title, it is, without any doubt at all, one of the finest
works of social commentary that has ever been written.
Moving
through the silent crowd
Who stand
behind dull cigarettes
Those men
who idle in the road,
I have the
sense of falling light.
They lounge
at corners of the street
And greet
friends with a shrug of shoulder
And turn
their empty pockets out,
The cynical
gestures of the poor.
Now they’ve
no work, like better men
Who sit at
desks and take much pay
They sleep
long nights and rise at ten
To watch
the hours that drain away.
I’m jealous
of the weeping hours
They stare
through with such hungry eyes.
I’m haunted
by these images,
I’m haunted
by their emptiness.
