It’s fucking hard work being a beggar in Paris:

It takes more out of you than any conventional job

To scratch interminably and with increasing violence

At the old itch, to lie shivering in rags

On the pavement for twenty-four hours at a stretch,

To repeat the same sad spiel for centimes

In every blasted carriage, to sit as still as Buddha

In the cold pool of your piss, to develop

The irregular yet repetitive twitch outside

The Jardin du Luxembourg, to maintain your own

Menagerie, better than you at gaining people’s

Sympathy, to approach sufficient people

On the street for enough to buy a cigarette,

And to get well and truly anorexic – fucking hard

– You have to starve for that.