In the third stanza the poet describes the restaurant as he once remembered it. The poet says the restaurant stands out and is surrounded by “Port Jackson trees”. The poet also talks about a guard that stands at the guard post which made him fell like only white people were welcome inside, describing it “white’s only inn”.
In the fourth stanza monosyllables dominate the poem; this reflects the blunt, angry, aggressive mood. The stanza is a short one with a simple message. The poet feels that even thought there isn’t a sign stating that black people aren’t welcome “No sign says it but we know where we belong” it is an unsaid rule that the black people aren’t welcome.
“In the fifth stanza the poet describes a place where black people are able to enter as having “plastic table tops” the place is run down and somewhere you would “wipe your fingers on your jeans” a stark contrast to the white people’s restaurant.
In the final stanza the poet goes up to the restaurant and looked thought the window “leaving small mean O of small mean mouth” he is saddened to find out "nothing's changed” he feels a deep anger that makes him want to destroy the restaurant "hands burn for a stone, a bomb, to shiver down the glass.” This is also metaphorically, means he wishes to “shiver down” the barriers between the black and white people.
I think the poet wrote this poem because he was angry that nothing had really changed since he had lasted visited; there is
the same racial divide in South Africa, even thought changes have supposed to have taken place, the poet still feels that it is a place that’s “white’s only”.
I think the poet also fells white people are treated better; this is clear in the poem as the “white people’s restaurant” is stylish and exclusive with a guard at the guard-post. While in the “black people’s restaurant” people eat from a plastic tabletop. This makes the poet reflect on the fact that there are huge inequalities between the black and white people, I also think the poem reminds us of the importance of the lower class.
“Two Scavengers in a truck, two beautiful people in a Mercedes”
The poem “Two Scavengers” is set in 1960’s America, and is about two garbage men in San Francisco and two well-paid people in a Mercedes. The poem explorers the cultural divide that exists in a supposedly single society. The poet talks about how garbage men look at the well-paid people and the way the rich people look at the garbage men when waiting at traffic lights. The couples brought together in this poem represent the extremes that exist in society.
In the first stanza the poet talks about the difference in appearance
Between the “garbage men” and the “beautiful people” the garbage men are in a run down “bright yellow garbage truck”, with the beautiful people in an “open Mercedes” that was as elegant as the people inside it. The poet also writes “one on each side hanging on and looking down” this has a double meaning; they are looking down into the car, but also “looking down” at the shallow, rich people.
In the second stanza the poet describes what the two couples are dressed in, the garbage men as wearing “red plastic blazers” which is a stark contrasted to the beautiful people how are immaculately dressed in “a hip three-piece linen suit” and “Short skirt and coloured stockings”.
In the first few lines the poet describes how unglamorous the job of the garbage men is comparison to the couple in the Mercedes, Also using a word like “scavengers” to describe to the garbage men shows that they are at the bottom of society.
The poet goes on to portray the garbage men as “grungy” which is true when compared to the couple who are very neatly dressed and had probably only just set out on their journey unlike the men who have been “up since four a.m.”.
The poet then talks about the garbage men looking down at the couple in the Mercedes as if “they were watching some odourless TV ad” showing that the garbage men see the wealthy couple as “unreal” something that could only be seen on television, a lifestyle that they couldn’t achieve.
In line 25 the poet stats that the younger of the two garbage men is about the “same age as the Mercedes driver” I think this shows how the two men are the same similar, the only difference being the Mercedes and the clothes.
In the final stanza all four individuals are held together “for an instant” at the red traffic light, this being the only time rich and poor are equal. “As if anything at all were possible” for the two garbage men, and where “everything is always possible” for the young couple in the Mercedes, just before they go off to very different destinations.