HELP CREATE ORDER

It is against the law
to beg in the subway.
Help create order.
Don't give money to lawbreakers.

I heard these lines the other day
while riding the downtown no. 6 train.
They reminded me
of an announcement
I used to hear
some twenty years ago
during the Koch era.

The point then
was about the same,
that homeless people should go away
and leave decent middle-class people alone
to read their newspapers
and contemplate
the course of history
while the stock market
melts
along with the polar icecaps.

After Koch
there was Dinkins
then there was Giuliani
and now there's Bloomberg.
Mayors come and go
but some things don't change.

Homeless people
are here to stay,
so you'd better get used to them.

Their stories aren't bad
as theater,
if you think about them
as tragedy.

                           George Snedeker