Our Visitors No Longer Come

The neighborhood is not the best

this place we call the ‘hood’ in jest

too many drugs, too many guns

our visitors no longer come.

Pimps selling ladies of the night

pushers give the druggies delight

out in plain view, they have no fear

this place so bad, no cops come near.

Streets littered with broken glass

the vacant lots are full of trash

emaciated dogs and cats

the alley ways are full of rats.

Our memories still remain vivid

of suburbs were we used to live

at night in prayer, our thanks we said

but now we pray to wake not dead.

A distant past, our life before

a home to love, we have no more

where we sleep now, a rundown slum

our visitors no longer come.

Written/Copyrights Retained by: O’Della Wilson AKA Alhavakia

February 21, 2005

SUMMARY: This poem was inspired by the neighborhood conditions, where we lived, after a difficult divorce. My children’s father refused to pay the ordered child support, and as the sole caregiver to our disabled daughter, finding work was difficult to say the least. We have since moved from that house, but unfortunately the heartaches of that neighborhood continue to haunt my family. On March 29, 2009 my brother was viciously murdered by five cowards, that gunned him down to die in the street, for my mother to find. May God have mercy on their souls.