Poverty

Masses of have-nots 
living in rotten concrete blocks
grey the walls, the streets, the sky,
with the have's carelessly driving by.
No savings, no bank account,
a month just feels like another round.

Heavily guarded shopping malls
dozens of banks with shining walls
fancy cars and expensive cloths
but no money for repairing the roads
it's an enormous number of slaves
bearing the marks of their cages.

Taxes take a winding path
into the pockets of the oligarch
the state becomes a dancing ball
corruption reigns the city hall
at the switchboards of power
the poor slave is not worth a flower.

Poverty is here, one feels it creeping,
you here the old, the homeless weeping,
you see how they fear cruel winter
without warmth, without coal and tinder,
you see why they resort to drinking,
it merely makes them stop thinking.

So head for the banks of the Dnjepr,
equipped with what makes a trapper,
catch the big fat greedy sharks
and soon the river shows better marks,
leaving food for the nice little fish
poverty shrinks slowly, dish by dish.

F Sz 1 Dec 2006 Dnjepropetrovsk