A Quest for Answers: A Personal Journey

By Victor M. Vélez

A Quest for Answers: A Personal Journey, takes you by the hand on a journey into the world of homelessness. The authors voice and the homeless voice draws a profile of the daily struggles of being homeless. The journey takes you from the external pressures of living on the streets to the invisible internal thoughts that wander in silence seeking answers.

A Quest for Answers: A Personal Journey, the writing is a journey into the lives of the homeless people and gives every American a first hand glimpse into the tragedy of homelessness.

-Donald Whitehead
Executive Director
The National Coalition for the Homeless

A Quest for Answers, is a must read for everyone. It powerfully speaks to the authentic visual and poetic realities of the homeless in a manner that causes one to declare, I thought I knew.

-Revella Logan Love, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Culturally Competent Communications

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 29, 2003
• ISBN: 9781469114330

Victor M. Vélez

Victor M. Vélez, a native of Puerto Rico, grew-up in New York, relocated to Cincinnati in 1994. Velez, is a Cincinnati-based percussionist. He has played with “Latin X-posure,” “Fiesta del Soul,” and is currently a “conguero” for “Son del Caribe,” playing classical salsa. His poetic work includes: “6 Silver Poets & the Bullets Proof Chapbook, 1999; “A Quest for Answers: A Personal Journey,” Xlibris, 2003; “Poems and Drawings on Peace and Justice,” Cincinnati local poet’s collection, November 2005 and 2007. He directed, “Escandalo Poetico I and II,” February 2005 and 2006, performed at the Playhouse in the Park in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Book preview

Copyright © 2003 by Victor M. Vélez.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

16406

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

A QUEST

FOR ANSWERS

MY JOURNEY TO WORK

My Journey to Work

A QUEST

FOR ANSWERS

A Quest for Answers

Autumn Blues

Tears

Inner Shadow

My Next Step

Masquerade

Broken Windows

Unpainted Fences

Waiting

It’s Not Easy …

Make Me Whole Again

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

Home Away from Home

Soft-Spoken

Portrait of Three Women

A Place to Relax

Living on the Rooftop

The Mayor of the Bowery

Spiritual Hunger

All I Needed Was Some Change

On the E Train

Bedtime Story

FRAGILE LIFE

Fragile Life

Wounded Words

One Pulse

www.vitalstatistics.com

Regardless

Meeting Adjourned

Obituary Column

Elegy

MY JOURNEY HOME

My Journey Home

List of State

and Other Agencies

To

my wife Sonia,

and my two daughters,

Ivylisse and Anjelica,

for their enduring patience during this project.

A Special Dedication

to the memories of

Mitch Synder from New York City

and Buddy Gray from Cincinnati, Ohio.

In his unflinching poetic portrait of the emotional and visual debris of the homeless, Victor Velez creates unfurnished rooms filled with cries of sorrow from nameless street people. With a compassionate eye Velez swallows a cup of coffee to warm the fleshly abyss of a homeless body. Even though he provides us with hope, we are shadowed by an evil which unlike an evenings sky / came to an end. This moral vision is heartfelt and this book contains volumes about the fragility of life attempting to honor the nameless whose obituary is wordlessness, whose suffering belongs to those of us who see, who care, who go home for dinner.

—Carol Feiser Laque

Most recent book: House of Rain

I recently had the opportunity to review your moving account of homelessness, A Quest for Answers; A Personal Journey. I was impressed by the photography, which captures the solitude of homelessness, even among the throngs of humanity that live in our nation’s metropolitan areas. The collection captures what homeless people feel everyday, and draws the reader into a world that is both desperate and filled with hope. This is the first work of its kind of which I’m aware, pairing poetry and photography into a powerful force that can transform the understanding of homelessness.

As the Executive Director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, I am acutely aware of the many issues facing today’s homeless population. This quest for answers