My Box with the Highway Above, Salute to Sam Walter Foss' "House by the side of the Road" Options

[Larry]

Hi All,
Lori thought I might get a few crits/suggestions to polish this piece from her January challenge. We were supposed to pick one stanza and post an answer but I couldn't help myself.

My Box with the Highway Above

Dressed in rags, they live out of a cart;
there is no place else they can choose.
Some exist, day to day, on the street
gaping holes in their souls and shoes
Other's paths led them from their high places…
You can’t go home again!
So I’ll live in my box with the highway above,
get by as best I can.

I will live in my box with the highway above
as fortunate ones race past-
There are those who are rich but some are so sad,
I’ve been both so I won‘t cast
loud shouts of rage or hurl epitaphs,
I‘m not a cynic’s man.
I will live in my box with the highway above,
get by as best I can.

I watch from my box with the highway above
the great throngs speeding by every day,
hopeful looks on their face, desperation!
Some see me and quick… Turn away!
But I look, see the strife and fear in their eyes.
My place is a part of His plan.
I will live in my box with the highway above,
get by as best I can.

I know that my plight’s not a permanent thing
and ahead, life surely will change.
That the highway above is the road I will take,
my station I’ll soon rearrange.
Still, I weep at their pain and the look in their eyes;
relief as they sped from the sight
of my life in a box with the highway above.
God dwells with me each night.

I will live in my box with the highway above
where men race desperately…
Some are rich, some are poor, with revulsion or fear,
I’ve been there! You’re like me.
Why should I curse my plight or your fortune,
or envy any man?
I will live in my box with the highway above,
get by as best I can.


Larry D. Jennings
for Mr. Foss


S3L6 did read: My place is not something I plan.

[Guest_ohsteve_*]

Larry, as I said over in the challenge, very well done I find no fault with this in my reading.
Steve

[Cleo_Serapis]

SWEET Larry!

I'll hold off until you have a few critters but one thing that sticks out to me is this:

My place is not something I plan.

I think there's a slight bump in the meter there and I wanted to say 'planned'. A simple fix might be to say (if you should ponder this further): My place must be in God's great plan. There, it ties your reference to God later as well.

Be back soon - good seeing this in Herme's!
~Cleo

[Larry]

Hi Steve and Lori,

Steve, once again, thanks for the thumbs up!

Lori, I don't see the bump unless you are referring to "plan"/"planned". Your suggestion did strike me as valid about utilizing S3 to point to S4. I think I will use:
My place is a part of His plan. I didn't want to use "God" in two consecutive stanzas.

I'll note the change at the bottom of the poem.

Larry

[Cleo_Serapis]

Excellent adjustment there Larry!

My place is a part of His plan.
I will live in my box with the highway above,
get by as best I can.

I'll be back this weekend to this thread and others, as I've LOTS of new posts (well, new for me to comment on) to enjoy!

See you soon
~Cleo

[jgdittier]

Dear Larry,
Mr. Foss's poem has recently made its way onto my favorites list and so I'm especially pleased to see you recast it as you've done.
I believe that if the essence of souls now departed ever have moments to see modern times, they'd be quite pleased to know their efforts are still brought to life.
You've kept the thrust but have also brought the situation to modernity and so have opened the piece to many who would never otherwise have read it.
It deserves to be read! Yes, yours and his.
My one comment isn't really a nit. I much appreciate repetition and so focus on his ending line.
It seems to me that "and be a friend to man" must scan as -/-/-/.
Thus, I believe, you modeled your piece accordingly. I would have too.
However, it seems to me that "get by the best I can" or better still", "get by as well as I can" as a trifle smoother.
Then again, a fellow living in a box under a highway, though truly a friend of man, may not be so focussed on grammar.
Yours here is a memorable posting and I've enjoyed it immensely.
Cheers, Ron jgdittier

[jgdittier]

Dear Larry,
I'm so form-driven, I forgot to commend you too for the sentiments and the choice of character which you've used to add immeasurably to Mr. Foss's rendition.
Cheers, Ron jgdittier

[Larry]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the read and the comments. I'm very happy you enjoyed my salute to Mr. Foss' and his wonderful poem. As you realize, I tried to maintain his meter throughout the piece and my closing line "get by as best I can" was written that way for that (and only that) reason. I know it isn't very good grammar and one would suppose that an educated and formerly well to do person, down on his luck and living under a highway in a box would still retain a modicum of knowledge and utilize something like your "get by as well as I can". Thus my metrical needs overrode my grammatical ones.

I've often thought of this poem (to which I was exposed as a freshman English student in high school) when I saw various homeless people living "as best as they could". I didn't have to memorize it but the gist and message stayed with me all these years so when Lori posted it in the challenges, I had to do my best to pass that message along, while inserting my feelings and the images which came to mind. I'm so very pleased to have been given a chance to do Mr. Foss' poem justice with my salute.

Again, thanks for the read and the kind words.

Larry

[jgdittier]

Dear Larry,
I live 8 miles from Waterbury, CT. In waterbury, under a mess of on an off ramps to an elevated highway, there is a Hooverville of folks living in cardboard cartons, lean-to and variously fabricated huts. Folks just like your subject.
These last few nights have had overnight temps reaching 0 degrees F and so the mayor has forced them into city shelters.
You poem is SO appropriate.
Cheers, Ron jgdittier

[Psyche]

I'm so pleased you brought this poem over from Pandora, Larry!

As I already said before, there are no nits from me. Your stance is highly original and deftly set in poetical form, following Foss's lead (altho' the challenge didn't specify any form at all, so that's more kudos to you!).

In my city too, Buenos Aires, there are literally thousands of people living in bits of cardboard. In doorways, under bridges, sometimes one gets the feeling they just dropped down on the pavement by some law of hazard, not really chosing a place. Whereas others live in groups and defend their territory, same as the scavengers.

So sad...

Congrats, Syl***

[Larry]

Hi Syl,

Thanks for stopping by for another read. Thanks for the praise but most of it goes to Mr Foss.

It is very sad that there are so many people without homes or living in cardboard boxes which they call home. Perhaps their plight will receive international attention with the coming out of the new movie "Slumdog Millionaire" here in the states. It has been nominated for 12 Oscars at the Academy Awards next month. I think a lot of the homeless around Buenos Aires are/were native tribes living in the jungles there until logging or other commercial interests destroyed their habitats and way of life. Now, they do not know how to cope with modern society after being wrenched from the Bronze Age.

When will Mankind realize he is not the only sentient life on this planet?

Larry

[Psyche]

Hi again, Larry!

I agree with you, absolutely. Destruction of natural habitats leads to the destruction of civilization as we know it.

"Slumdog Millionaire" will be shown soon in Buenos Aires, I shall definitely view it. At the moment they're showing "Australia", an excellent movie which deals in part with the situation of the aborigines.

Concerning Buenos Aires, I must point out that there are no jungles anywhere near this great cosmopolitan city, much like New York in many ways. The homeless are similar to the homeless in the big cities of the U.S. None of them are or were Native Americans (original dwellers). Argentina does have sub-tropical jungles in the extreme North, which are being destroyed, same as the Amazonian jungles in Brazil. But native tribes are not interested in the big cities, mostly they starve and die right where they always lived, shoved towards barren lands by the big corporations.

In this part of America, specifically Argentina, the Spanish Conqueror mercilessly annihilated nearly all the original dwellers. After independence from Spain in 1810, the Argentine armies mostly finished the first genocide, perhaps the largest in history, if we count the whole of South America.

Nowadays, having joined together with ethnic groups of Chile, Bolivia and other neighbouring countries, the descendants have manged to obtain representation in the U.N. Unite and survive! The biggest phenomenom is the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, who belongs to the Aymaran ethnic group.

Gee, I'm giving a history lesson! Sorry there, Larry. It's just that I was surprised that you should think there were unadapted native tribes living on the streets of Buenos Aires! Even the Negro population is almost nil, because most of the slaves brought from Africa managed to escape the slaughter by escaping to Uruguay and then Brazil.

No, the Buenos Aires homeless could well have been millionaires, in some cases, but mostly they're on the streets thru' lack of work, loss of job/home, no future, drugs, etc. And then there are the slums, where some sort of life is possible...

All the best!
Syl***