[Nicholas F.]

I cannot get over what seems to me a deep flaw in this piece, namely that these homeless people are thinking in riddles. The general complexity of the poem seems an exaggerated reaction to the equally naive notion that homelessness is a simple problem, and that the homeless should just find a job. At a certain point, intellectual gameplay becomes patronizing, and that is the case here. Who is this poem for, I wonder? And why the heck are homeless people being so lavishly dressed with mystique and metaphor? I'd be far more sympathetic if the poem made even the slightest effort to call half the attention to its subject matter that it does to itself. The priorities of this poem are unforgivably backward.

And why the ostentation of "On" in the title? Is this a philosophic treatise?

Sorry I cannot be more positive here.

Nick