poverty – The Spoken Word

We live lives  
Of fallacy
Sleepwalking 
Oblivious
Indentured slaves
Endlessly
Monotonously 
Going around and around
The hamster wheel
Powering someone else’s 
Flame.
  
Parroting those 
Surrounding us
Their diatribe 
Lulled by ignorance
Sweet Lullabies 
Deadening blows 
Leaving no visible marks
As we gorge 
Leftover morsels 
Their seductive charms
Brainwashed and 
Blissfully unaware
As we are 
Inevitably trampled
Ground down 
To dust.
  
Marionettes 
Pulled to and fro 
By dispassionate puppeteers 
Elites 
With a system rigged
Unfair to most
Stark disparity
Their right of birth
To maintain the status quo
Intent to fulfil 
Every privileged desire.
  
Time removes
Unstitches 
The invisible strings 
That bind consciousness 
Unbidden thoughts 
Seep though
I sense 
My surrounds 
With newly opened eyes
I start 
To spot 
Needless disparity 
Injustices all around
My mind 
It does 
Cause me to pause
To assimilate 
These hidden tapestries 
No longer 
Beyond my
Grasp.
  
I see 
The world as if anew
Layer upon layer of 
Nameless institutions
Politicians Protecting 
Power and inequity
Revulsion 
Fills my core
How have we 
Allowed this 
To become our society?
How could 
Our apathy 
Be so great?
So many remain 
Cocooned in false narratives
Playing another’s 
Game.
  
It’s time 
To take a stand 
Break the chains
The bonds that bind
To protect 
What remains of 
Our land
To stand up for those 
More invisible 
Than you or I
To break the shackles 
On our minds
Regardless of consequences 
To take a leap of faith
And act 
As if our 
Very lives
Depend on it
For they surely do.
  
Come.
Do your worst.

Can we make the invisible visible?

Our downtrodden

Trembling masses

Casting their waning shadows

On forgotten plains

Our near silent

Our near vanquished majority

Our shameful oversight

Hidden with our tacit knowledge

In plain view

Living on the borderline

Our most shirked

Our most forgotten

Fellow man

Disenfranchised

Misbegotten

Woeful creatures

Rooted unbeknownst

To a fractured and dimming spotlight.

Can we not just shine

Just for an instant

A piercing

Penetrating beam

Into the recesses

The crooks and crannies

And truly see

Not glazing over

The uncomfortable truths

Of our oh so comfortable lives?

If we had the slightest inclination

Could we not draw our collective breath

Inhale a little more deeply

And exhale a defiant challenge to our status quo

One that now so obviously benefits our elites

Our carefully manicured role models

Born to fortunate privilege

Primping and preening

Believing it was their talent

And not their postcode

Those who walk in wilful ignorance

Seemingly across water

But if you took the time

And peered closely

You would see

That this is on the arched backs

Of our drowning brothers and sisters

Asphyxiating in a system corrupted

No longer a meritocracy

No longer part of our vocabulary

Perhaps it never was…

Corporate greed is now our mantra

Our secret state

Profits at exponential rates

Inflation pressures we’re told

Must keep wages down

Out of reach of common man

While they wallow in their big fat juicy bonuses

At the top end of town

Peddling a perverse, inverse stew

Of capitalist socialism

Peddling us false prophets and propaganda

The pinnacle of populist views

Shamelessly, triumphantly echoes

“What’s in it for me?”

Where sowing fear and distrust of strangers

Left from right

Black from white

Race and religion

Is the new regime

What’s in vogue

Our new status quo.

As if there is no other honourable way

That being poor means you need to be punished

That instead of sharing the spoils

For your own good

When you are down

We will not pick you up

We will not help you

We will beat you into a final submission

For you are not worthy

You in your miserable state

We will smite you

We will shame you

We will subjugate you

We will fuck you when you are down

Simply we don’t give a shit

Who sees

Who knows

We are untouchable

For we wear the crown.

We could draw a line

If willing

We could wake

If willing

Challenge our indoctrination

Turn off mass media

Owned by billionaires

That numbs our senses

Hysterical infotainment parading

Thinly as news

Desensitising our minds

Falling into a stupor

Leaning further and further

To an alternative point of view

Playing into capricious goals

Of a skewed, racist agenda

A horrendous dystopian view of reality

An Orwellian state in the making.

All in the name of progress and equity

Because that is the American way

Our brothers in arms

Our star spangled role model

Australia

The poor wannabe

The fifty first state

A lapdog

Leaving behind all sense of decency

All sense of morality

For what

To bask in the shadow of another’s making

To catch the snacks that fall on the floor

For what?

To be their slaves?

No more.

Let me tell you of the everyday Australian

In our vernacular –

The fictitious honest battler

Let us keep their stories alive

Let us hold them ever so briefly in your minds eye

Shine brightly

Our beacon

To illuminate

Get close

Smell their desperation and despair

And use our teeth

To snap

To bite

Rip

Tear

Fray

And eventually

Snap

The knots that bind our fallacies

Our inbred prejudices

Our intemperance

Of those not worthy of our might.

Let us hold ourselves accountable for our intolerance

Our scorn

Our ridicule

Our unwillingness to accentuate

Their unfair

Pitiful plight

Let me tell you of their story

But let me ensure it is not simply a flight of fancy

Easily dismissed

Fingers snapped

In an instant due to naive simplicity

The optimism of our youth

But something oh so grounded

In a brutal

Uncompromising

Visceral reality

An awful chilling

Heartbreaking tragedy

An unending brutality

That surrounds

So pitifully

So many

In their unfair

Unjust

Everyday lives.

Can you imagine that in our lucky country

Full of overflowing riches

One in eight

Of our brothers and sisters

Live in intolerable subsistence

Below that shrieking, shameful poverty line

That in this land down under

We have a tale

Of haves and have-nots

Thirteen unlucky percent

Do not unfortunately share

Its embarrassingly rich bountiful fare

And to add to that injustice

One in six children

Share that miserable fate

A dire and destitute state.

And if your skin is black

And if your only sin is to be born Into a sunburnt land

Born as one from our First Nation

Then that shocking number escalates

Shatters records and shoots to

Thirty percent

It’s incomprehensible

Beyond comprehension.

And then to pour further fuel to a beaker that is already full

Let me take away our most precious commodity

What should be all of ours inalienable right

By taking away a precious gift

A span of ten years from an inglorious, unfair existence

Our people

From the First Nation

Born to fail

Bereft of the gift of life

Quickly and quietly dispensed.

And where do we house our invisible?

How do we sweep them out of plain sight?

Giving them no realistic option

But to live on the fringes

In distant urban dwellings

In sleepy country towns

Far from opportunity

To live below the poverty line

Many eeking out a meagre existence

Challenging them to find

Safe harbour

Where out of twenty-four thousand homes around Sydney

Only fifty are affordable

For a family on the borderline

Just fifty.

Putting all on Newstart

Regardless of age, health or family

Soul destroying politicians

Cynically peddling bullshit

A false

And evil ideology

That their amounts are fair

Indexed with inflation

Punishment with perpetual poverty

A shame they must continually bear.

And in the same breath

Voting though their shameful pay rises

Perks and bonuses

Tax cuts for those that don’t need it

Leading us all into oblivion

Corporate greed at its finest

Our final solution

Perpetuating a cycle

With major inequalities

Institutionalised

Built into the very fabric of Australian society.

Can we make the invisible visible?

Yes we can

But

Only if we are willing

To open our eyes

Only if we have the will

And the way

Only if we finally

Finally chose to look

And not look away

To say enough is enough

For a time will come

Where we must all pull together

To save our land

To save our planet

From our shameful history

Our indulgences

That has raped and pillaged

This land

Heartbreaking mismanagement.

Otherwise I propose

That we will all vanish

Screaming and scratching

In pain and agony

Sliding into the blackness of despair

Realising only on the way down

That we too will vanish

Vanish into the bleak and bleary night

Invisible.