Poverty
If we were told our lives before we lived it
Few of us will take the pleasure to experience it,
The graceless persistent presence of poverty
Like a rare visitant and capricious wind.
It’s 2 o’clock in the morning
As I pull my rags together for a comfortable sleep,
Clouds in the sky conspire to shed down heavy showers
Tailed by a clatter of thunder
Dying off into sullen echoes neath the South.
“Damn!” I shouted out loud
Striking the air with a harsh reproachable clang
In response, heaven let loose her dam retaining water
U’on thirsty fields, barren plains and beasts,
Little droplets peeked through the zinc, ceiling to my sheets,
Another line imposed itself upon the walls
Peeling every paint with little resistance or plot.
Before the morning sun could pry from its cloud covers
To a world which has taken a nightmare pill
I embarked upon the road,
Hungry as cold in a silent street at midnight
Savouring the smells drifting out of aristocratic cuisines.
Riches does not respond to wishes
Nor did my dreams the previous night turn to reality,
Wealth grows only wherever men exert energy
A panacea for this universal sickness of humanity.
As I stood to content my mingled looks of mirth and misery
A group of men formed a semicircle around a surprised thief
Looking like a deer caught in the glare of an intruding pair of headlights,
Squirming on the ground like a helpless infant,
Shaking, shivering and sweating like a maniac,
Ensuing jungle-justice, he had just received
Albeit saved by the timely intervention of the police.
“If youth only knew, if age only could,"
Whispered the self-made millionaire before entering his fancy car.
“Money is as shy and elusive as the cliché of a pretty girl,
It must be wooed and won by methods similar to winning a heart.”
Certainly, his words held no grounds at the time
As a fleet of butterflies swarming my stomach,
Tried to make their exit at the view
Of wealthy people caught up with a few flavours-du-jour along the pews.
Oh Mercury! Roman god of thieves and vagabonds,
No rich man injures his digestion for the sake of kindness to the poor
Why do we manifest a blind and bigoted zeal?
Is life just inherently unfair?
Some people dig deeper and deeper into debt
While others just keep earning more money
Perhaps you’ve been seduced by Lady Justice-
The famous blindfolded statue,
Holding the scales and sword,
My fate dangling on the balance.
My misery doesn’t come from an empty head and a full purse
But a repetition of daily choices shapes my future,
Failure to weather the storm,
Losing stability and confidence
Ticking through the hours in constant regret.
Lo! gauging the gifts that silence brings in a cemetery
Alas! against all odds, it is better to be alive,
Poor today but living to fight tomorrow.