Thy Brother's Keeper

They are everywhere, in impoverished
countries whose cities strain with mass
humanity and in countries of the wealthy
developed world where technology and
industry has created immense wealth yet
they roam the streets, eat in the streets
sleep on the streets, under highway bridges
and passes, fall in love, become violent 
with one another and bystanders alike
peddle and use drugs and die in the streets
the growing army of the homeless, named 
by polite society, the 'unhoused'. Transient
lives of gross humanity whom misfortune
has led astray and whom the settled and 
the fortunate regard with empathy until
they approach too intimately and suddenly
appear threatening, though some can be
since they suffer from mental illness and
who can predict when that psychosis will
spark into rage and claim a hapless victim?
They become the enemy of good order
their misfortunes failing to excite the
sympathy their conditions demand when
funding and good intentions fail to serve
their needs and relieve society of their
oppressive, guilt-inducing, angry presence.