Thursday, May. 01, 2008 - 8:41 a.m.
Homeless Pet Motel
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On the weekend'
we went questing
and ended up taking photos
of the skuzziets part
of a skuzzy suburb
of the very skuzzy dying city
of Old Niagara Falls
It was a study in gross urban decay
a sharp contrast to our hometown
all nice and pretty with gardens
and flowering shrubs
so we tried to outdo each other
documenting the downward slide
of old Niagara Falls
a place that peaked in 1930
and has been steadily
irreparably degenerating ever since
where even the bricks
are falling out of walls
and the wooden window
sashes are so rotton
that the window glass hangs on
by the adhesive power of paint
yet, people still live there
or should I say
try to exist there
Its worse than a Tim Burton movie
and its absolutely
and sadly all to real
Olld Niagara falls is so depressing
that anybody who sees it
for the first time' cries
and then feels sick
and then tries to forget about it
yet people live there still and call it home
So as we took turns
snapping pictures of
the considerable decay
and wall to wall despair
we saw signs of an
abandoned hobo campsite
carefully concealed
beneath some trees
behind the train station
we approached and saw it was
a winterproof fortress
made of rotton mattresses
and wet old couches stacked up
some rusty shopping carts were nearby
full of soggy bags of rags..
a firepit just beyond the crawl in hole
was a wide rusty metal pan
must have been the main source of heat
for the sole inhabitant..
a lost mattrress troll
and as I know last winter was brutally cold
and very very much snow fell
whoever lived there must have suffered
alot, and without any relief
but off to one side under some bushes
we found an amazing thing:
a series of cardboard boxes ,
each wrapped in a garbage bag
and set in rows on a wooden factory pallet
each box had a straw floor..
and a comfortable entrance
it was a pet motel..eight different units
we knew for sure because
there were empty cat food cans strewn about
and margerine containers for water
a pet motel
or an honour system zoo
-it's hard to tell sometimes
whhoever was living there
in the rotton mattress cave
shivering before a small fire
still found the time and energy to provide
shelter and food for maybe a dozen homelss cats
nobody knows the power of mercy
more than those who need
a little mercy themselves
the deserving helping
the deserving in winter
it was beautiful in its own way
to see their secret system of mercy
tucked beneath the trees
behind the train station
of a dying city
everybody cries after a visit
to the rotton guts of old Niagara Falls
but they cry for different reasons
