There is a glassy eyed man who greets everyone He just wants you to eat and be good He’s rejected 100 times a day by stone-faced looks For twenty years ten hours a day he’s stood Trying to convince passers-by to give it a spin He just looks at everyone and gives them a grin You say you’ve ate and he just asks when If you don’t sit down he’ll just say thank you
The man down the way is missing all his buttons His shirt and his pants hang off him weakly He’s shredding fabric everywhere that he goes One wonders how can such a confident man appear so meekly Now picture all your favorite places, they never let him inside The fact is that he was rejected by every job he’s applied You can tell by his cadence that nothing disturbed his stride But here he is, his whole self where everyone can get a good look
The sweeping man with his hand up just wants to be left alone I’m not a trash man he says - I won’t talk about it But he’s getting hassled despite having no answers He prefers to say nothing when he can say whatever he sees fit When shoved he might say what to do I really have to submit He’s up early picking up after the man who can have a bad time anywhere He’d be an unnecessary being if everybody would do their share So if you ask him for directions he’d rather not discuss it
The watch salesman peddles around the busy beach But that’s only after he got thrown out of the station For being a nuisance and causing another commotion The woman turned him down and the locals gave him a citation Everybody these days buys their dated equipment from a fancy store You know the ones where they’ll spray you as you walk in the door Hands full, pockets empty, he navigates the shore While million dollar boats are visible in the distance
The pressured and pressed man’s hat flies off He’s got somewhere to be and he’s running late He’s afraid to go out but this is his business If you look at him too long you’ll see that he’s ready to abdicate See to it that you don’t get lost in the face of despair You can see in his face he doesn’t think it’s quite fair From the whites of his eyes you can tell he had quite the scare Whether he’ll make it or not you’ll never know because you can’t keep up
A completely bent in half woman waddles alone The pain of her years weighs down her body She nearly slips and falls on all of the rocks Her predicament would be helped if her shoes weren’t so shoddy The line forms behind her and somebody yells The bag dragging behind her rings like bells You just know she’s never stayed in fancy hotels What will she accomplish as her exercises are fruitless
A man sits by the fountain and cries He’s hurt by something but he speaks as a foreigner Even if they wanted to no one can comfort him You can dismiss him or pretend he’s a professional mourner No matter what the truth is, no one is in his corner Obviously you wonder out loud what is the cause of his pain Why is it so hard when the meaning can be so plain
