Homelessness 2011: Below the Sceptred Sway

by Homeless T

2016-03-09. Allison, Iowa. Portia speaks some well-known lines in "The Merchant of Venice" that HomelessT will sometimes surf up to console himself as he works at a public computer. Later, he may try to recall the speech as he stands beside a road, thumbing for a ride to an unknown city--where his heart will seek means to mend. He can get as far as the first two lines before he falters.

From "The Merchant of Venice," Will Shakespeare, 1596:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself.

Would that all the mightiest learn to seek "above the sceptred sway."

Often, Homeless T reflects: How misused I feel today, my heart aching as I ponder my divorce from a woman who never could be a wife, but whom I still love. I simply could not abide her. Now, how desolate the outlook for all that I hoped.

No teaching job will have me, nor any employment beyond the part-time housekeeping I have been given to do--for which I am grateful. As regards my music and my writing, although I have brought my modest talents nearer to fruition, no-one seems to want any part of them.

As I live, I remain a has-been that never was. The worst of it is that I see no end to my scuffling hither and yon, between nowhere and nothing. Such is my life. Friends and relations have tired of me, and I have to accept that the strands once holding together our shared social, familial, or professional worlds were thin indeed.

Still, I am lucky indeed to be alive and quite healthy, too. For those precious few people who have not deserted me, I thank God, and of course, I thank them. I have a six-pack of cherry cola in the ice box, and frozen burritos to microwave. My estranged wife swears that she has not strayed from fidelity, and I will take her word for it. Looking from my bottom-dog rung on the ladder of human society with an upward perspective is the wiser choice, even on days such as the present, when the skies within darken with an umbrage that promises to last eternally.

And did I mention that HomelessT has his very own icon now?

And I drawed it all by myself!