"Change Please"

A poem about the Romany girls/people who sell the "Big Issue" magazine and the Western attitude towards them.

                         “Change please”

 

 

“Change please” is all you hear, as you pass her by,

Magazines clasped in arms, hoping you will buy,

The dowdy clothes in which she stands, traditional in their style,

The shoppers just ignore her, yet she offers them a smile.

 

Some people often smite her and the fact she’s over here,

Their ignorance and arrogance have garnished into fear,

But why chastise these people, who have no land called home,

Where generations have lived their lives, a life in which they roam.

 

And as you pass this young girl, have you ever stopped and thought,

If you were her and she were you, the kind of life you sought,

Accepted like the others and live as people do,

Why is living in your loving world, such a Big Issue?

 

So next time when you see her, still dressed in dowdy clothes,

She may be dreaming of that life, no-one ever knows,

In her eye’s, you’ll find the “Why’s?” her questions and her pleas,

The “Change” she seeks is attitude, when she asks from you, “Change please”.