William H.A. Willbond MSM, CD

THE SLEEPER CELL

Bright brick archways standing apart showing downtown eastside art
These wonderful pictures by my friend John Ward Leighton
What are these brilliant colourful street scenes constantly stating?
Wrapped in Sally Anne Blankets shopping carts filled with stuff
Showing Canadian homeless street beggars asleep on the rough

John’s pictures of flowers and the beautiful park trees
In contrast with buildings and street scenes like these
Drugs, booze and poverty in this living street person’s hell
Lower Eastside accommodations in our own Sleeper Cell!
We constantly eliminate the rodents and kill off each cockroach
What of our street people as the 2010 Olympics approach?

We can’t stop this beauty and we can’t hide the art
But we can help the homeless if we all have the heart
Let us pressure our leaders, Feds, Provincial and Munie
Let us each give to our charities – perhaps a Twoonie or a Loonie
Did Schreiber give three hundred thousand to Byron Muldooney?

John is an artist who gets no Canada Council Grants
Perhaps because his pictures cause Governmental rants?
His poetry is truthful and his statements make clear perfect sense
The Olympics get millions and the poor scramble for cents
Our homeless Vancouver street people cannot afford rents!

THE WEDNESDAY CLUB
April 17, 2008

Author’s Note: The wonderful photographs of Poet/Photographer John Ward Leighton inspired “Sleeper Cell”. John is a retired soldier and a brilliant Canadian Artist who lives in downtown Vancouver! His street scene photographs and his telltale poetry describe the inner city life and death struggles of the Vancouver Lower Eastside streets (Hastings and Main are called Heartbreak and Pain). If anyone should receive Canada Council Grants for their work, it should be J.W. Leighton. Just one old soldier’s opinion for whatever that is worth?