Read Poem: Spurned, by Gary Beck

The beaten, the homeless
the mentally ill
trudge city streets
in the kinship of defeat,
dreams departed
like so many others
who believed in the Declaration,
who believed in the Constitution
and painfully found
it wasn’t written for them.

—

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 23 poetry collections, 7 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 1 collection of his one-act plays. Published poetry books include: Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways…