Two Poems
Poetry by Henry Doyle
The Heart and Darkness of the DTES
It's a scene out of the show
The Walking Dead.
Here in the
Downtown Eastside.
Tents everywhere up and down Hastings and Main
A cross of suffering.
Whole blocks
Turned into
Flea markets
A man in his wheelchair,
coming out of his apartment building
gets stabbed twice in the back.
As he screams his way thru
this Walking Dead nightmare.
In an SRO in Granville Street,
a man pours gasoline all over his room
and sets it on fire.
Walks out of the fire
with a machete
in hand.
Attacks another man,
twice to the head.
A young woman,
in the wrong place
and the wrong time,
gets attacked and loses
some of her fingers.
I call people that are not from the DTES
‘Civilians.’
They watch the news
about the DTES,
safe in their condos,
badly decide
to come down here and see things .
Like they are going
to a city zoo.
But in this zoo
there are no locks
on these SRO cages.
Down here
The wild animals
are free-range.
A man and a woman
wait for a cab
outside the Empress Hotel
when a man runs up behind them
and attacks them both
with a machete.
VPD kill a man over
spilt milk.
He was badly bear sprayed
coming out of his SRO building,
the Holborn Hotel,
down at Hastings and Dunlevy,
across from VANDU drop-in centre.
The man runs into the convenience store and grabs a quart of milk.
He strips off his clothes and starts
to pour the milk all over himself,
to help the effect of the bear spray. Screaming for help,
when the cops show up.
People across the street
yell at the cops that he needs help,
that he was bear sprayed.
The cops shoot the naked man six times
with bean bag bullets and he dies.
I am coming back from Timmy’s with a coffee
as I see a bed sheet over the dead man.
Chris Amyotte dies on Hastings Street
over spilt milk.
This is the Heart and Darkness of the DTES.
The Heart and Darkness of the DTES #2
I wait for the #3 bus
to go to work
at the corner of Main and Hastings.
It’s after 6 a.m. and the city-run washrooms
outside the Carnegie Centre are open.
People are up and down the stairs.
Most slept on the streets
last night in blankets or sleeping bags
curled around themselves.
A bare-footed woman
with long, coloured
pink hair, jeans and just
her bra on with a blanket
on her back
cries and stumbles
down the women’s washroom stairs.
The November cold rain has stopped
from last night.
The corner reminds me
of a ragged retreating army
its pack tight
with many still sleeping
on cardboard beds.
Others sit on their bicycles
or milk crates in circles
like they are having
a meeting.
I see three or four groups
selling or buying drugs.
I down the rest of my beer
and start on my Timmy’s,
light a smoke
as this tattooed face dude
bums a smoke off of me.
Then I hear that cry for help,
“Does anyone have Narcan?”
I’ll get some from the washroom attendant
downstairs,
I yell back,
as someone flags down
a passing ambulance.
I get the needle ready
as I fast-walk over to the man
that I notice coming back
with my coffee.
But the EMT guy waves me off…
He has been dead for hours now.
Sorry.
This is the Heart and Darkness
of the DTES.