Poets Against Inequality
The tree smells like a bleak corner, a
Rusty alley and drug from dunghill,
But the stench of its shade
Is covered by perfumes and masks of glamour.
The big bosses of the garden
Openly make use of this tree:
They sell to us its branches
As if they were sandalwood or fake ivory pieces.
The pain of its foliage receives
The blessing and guards' care:
They fear that a collapse or a forest fire
Will destroy the domains of their bucolic lives.
They have made us believe that
It is the Tree of Knowledge,
And everybody thinks we can neither touch it
Nor change its stubborn evil.
It is not true:
We must clean its roots and purify its sap,
For the Tree of Life that will be reborn over us.
Ellias Aghili, Iran
Kingdoms Fall
Equality without 'in' was born in Eden,
before our ancestors’ fall
Wealth and value for all women and men
in heaven, in the Eden hall
The given Holy Spirit was the same;
from the very beginning we were equal
But now, I guess we can feel the shame
Between us, inequality erected a wall
When a father is sorrowful
when he wants but can't buy
that doll so colorful
for his girls that cry
Yes, feel the shame
in a world so wide
Some with famous names
money they do hide
O' sky, why don't you cry
for this world so cold?
From poverty many a people die
Some rich, money they do hold
Inequality, your castle’s so tall
driven to the heart of the skies
Your kingdom must fall
for equality to rise.
Kareem Afinbiowo Akadri, Nigeria
The Giant Tree of Inequality
This is a transmitted disease with no remedy
The masses seem restless and depressed
They are swimming in their boiling blood
The tree of inequality has grown
Its branches and leaves have covered the earth
This is no more an issue between white and black
Man and woman or old and young
This tree has sown terrorism, hatred and pain
This tree grows from one generation to the next
With no hope or will to shove it down
The poor are running down the stir of poor
Willing to sweat out blood for two dollars
Ready to be a cleaner with his master
It is unfortunate that we find ourselves
in the land of Egypt again where the few
drink wine with their golden cup why
Watching the masses working to the bone
And they are laughing while we are weeping
If this world is fair, how can less than
65 people be richer than half of the world’s 7.4 billion
As you and I know, the rich go for the rich
while the poor go for the poor
I hope one day we shall see the promised land again
Where our hopes and dreams lie
Where there is no class or sorrow of the bone.
Saadat Tahir Ali, Pakistan
Why, I came to be?
Why was I born with a shade of dark?
Light for the lighter and for us stark.
Why I’m crowded in a down town end,
Dragging my life in a twisted bend!
While they shop at that shiny mall
My pock marked road, a shanty stall!
My street closed with a concrete block.
And bro has a calloused bleeding hock.
For them ice-cream and lollipops.
While we look weary at those cops.
Down their street is a lovely park.
Here parked beaten truck of a shark.
Why can’t we have those painted signs?
A smiley dad when he returns from mines!
Those kids line up and go to school.
Here we look around dumb like a fool.
Those kids skip, sing those psalms.
While we sit idle wring our palms.
Those kids are healthy giggle and laugh.
Have games to play and caring staff.
Kids there dressed in shorts and socks.
We play mock with sticks and rocks.
Why I see chain fences all around me?
Why, I wonder, that I came to be?
Denis Andrei, Romania
Alienated of will
They expect to be bowed to with respect.
Subjugated, of course, we have to obey,
because a position is now what makes
the difference between the basic right to exist,
to live, to love, to not be damned by our scream;
“Arbeit macht frei!”
So much wealth while more plates go empty.
So much health while fewer can afford it.
Is there an end to this urge of accumulation
Without any kind of fair redistribution?
Could you spare change, sir?
Tia Attwood, Australia
How greed consumes the leaders of this land
(Sonnet)
How greed consumes the leaders of this land!
Like crows begin to prey upon the poor
through tax of which our Caesar does demand
whilst wings of penury begin to soar.
How bleak the world has been this century,
with propaganda spread through common lies.
Enslaved our freedom is to penury
as pearls of winter weep through soulful skies
But if the rich would pay their share of tax,
decrease the price of petrol, food and oil
where middle-class no longer pays the max
to make it fair to all who earn from toil
This world's deranged by bigotry through creed,
which paints the streets in poverty through greed.
Kasiviswanathan Kunnanath Balakrishnan, India
To Those Who Govern
In the harsh light of daybreak
Your silence on seeing disparity
Silently spat on me and walked away.
In the draining forenoon
Akin to a hostile tree-pecker
Seeking gain ruthlessly
Your silence on seeing misery
Pecked my heart steadily.
In the burnt midday
Ants are eating the injured kitten surely
And your silence on seeing death
Raise me to be the defender for equity.
Anna Banasiak, Poland
The richness of the soul
I’m poor.
Trapped in the cage of society,
we were born humans
but we are not equal.
I walk through the path
full of hidden light.
My home is the beauty of being.
Rich people are locked
in the bars of prejudice.
They live in the sea of unconsciousness,
blind to the sounds of existence.
I have no money,
but my soul blossoms
with spiritual richness.
I’m the gardener
planting flowers
in the garden of life.
Khaoula Basty, Tunisia
A Poor Engineer
My father was a poor man, but strong.
I entered school to study and become an engineer.
I always thought my teachers would encourage me.
I always thought my friends would love me,
Unfortunately,
I was poor, my friends were r
ich.
My teachers encouraged the rich students.
Should I ask them to encourage me because we are equal
In the name of Humanity?
Should I ask them to love me because I am poor? But
I have a powerful mind.
I thought my school life would be a paradise.
I thought my teachers and friends
Would be my second family, but rich—
Rich with emotions of love, hope, and joy.
I started struggling to be a good, ambitious, and smart student.
I participated in class, I was friendly,
Not only with my teachers, but also with my friends.
I showed and proved to all of them my genius,
So they helped me and encouraged me to get higher marks.
We lived in mutual respect and mutual love.
We are born Human but different,
So let us live equally with our differences and similarities.
Now, I'm an engineer and I do love all of them,
My teachers and my friends.
Lawrence Beck, USA
Circles of Hell
This is our fate, Melissa. We have done
The best that we can do: the mediocre
Colleges, the majors no one cares about,
The loans, the dismal circling back into
Our parents' homes, and rooms which
Mock us with their juvenile compact
Disks and brick-a-brack. It isn't as if
Time has stopped. It's worse. It's going
Backwards now. My mother asks me
If I'd like a roast for dinner. I don't care.
I thought, I dreamt, that, after school,
I'd feed myself in my own home, and
I would not be one more servant saying,
“May I help you, ma'am?” for wages
Which won't pay my loans. I'd be,
Instead, the one who's served,
The haughty bitch who finds a flaw
In every item that she sees, and throws
A fit until the man who never has kind
Words for me, comes out and fawns,
And takes her hand, and begs her to
Accept what she had wanted for
Three fourth's the price. I see
Surrender in his eyes, and I see
Hers. She's crushed his soul and
Chortles, knowing that that's so.
She'll take her prize and drive back
To a mini-mansion up the street
Where she will gloat until her
Husband, rising young executive,
Comes home and asks her what's
For dinner. “Roast?” she asks.
He walks away. Some steps up
From us, Melissa, she, too, knows
And hates her fate, and realizes
That she's done the best
That she can do.
Abhilasha Bhatt, India
Rich dad, Poor dad
Rich Dad—
Rich dad can give you a big house with a helipad,
Lots of luxurious cloth, perfumes, watches and shoes in the closet,
Many Cars like a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a Jaguar to drive;
Can buy you a personal airplane and helicopter to fly high in the sky;
Can give you lots of bundles of paper called money;
Can allow you to spend lots of money in late night and day light parties;
Can buy punishment whether small or big for you;
Can buy a seat in highly reputed institutions for your admission, whether you are worthy for it or not;
Can give you a well settled business without doing a single bit of work;
Will cry for your failure after giving everything and fulfilling every wish whether legitimate or not
Poor Dad—
Poor dad can give you a house of love with helipad of affection;
Can't afford to gift you costly and luxurious cars
But can give you a car of discipline and politeness that drives you in the journey of life;
Can give you the lesson of honesty;
Can teach you as a teacher in the institution of life, for life;
Can teach you the importance of life and hard work;
Can't give you bundles of money but can give you bundles of sacrifices for you;
Can help you to understand the importance of emotions and education to fly high in the sky;
Can help you to accept your mistakes, face the consequences, learn from them and dissolve them in your life;
Can't give you the well settled business but can give you the way towards a well settled life;
Will never cry for not being able to afford your every wish, because he knows his teaching will never let you to get down.
Mayjorey Buendia, The Philippines
Inequality / In Equality
Worker ants, you have to be up
early in the morning
Without sufficient living wage,
but still, long-hours working
Body aches and stomach cramps
I know, you are worrying
High consumer taxes and piling medicine bills..
No, I'm not paying!
In this world you are bound
to serve the higher-ups
Bugs with wings, some will eat you alive,
compose the 1% on top
Coeteris Paribus, has been long gone
since the population boom
Who am I? It's me, the Queen Bee,
and I'm dying Soon.
Sophy Chen, China
Men and Women are not Equal
When I was young my parents always quarreled, day and night
My father always said that all the money was earned by him
While my mother always did housework and sobbed in silence
How men and women were not equal, in those years
I swore that I must earn money as men did when I grew up
So I unconsciously made a comparison with what men did
When I was at school I studied very hard as men did
I wore men’s clothes, spoke as men, walked as men, even acted as men,
and did nearly everything as men did.
I always unconsciously make a competition with men
When I work in society I work very hard as men do
I try my best to tell them I can do everything as they do
But till now, as an English teacher, I cannot earn my fair share
As a poetry translator, I cannot earn what I want to
Till now, I even cannot make a competition with my living
So what I can do is to make a competition with myself
While I doubt that men and women are not equal or life is not equal,
or I am not equal in my life stages, sometimes
I even doubt that if my life stages are not equal,
humanity won’t be equal in eternality.
__________
Editor's note:
Oxfam calls on governments to take action to fight Inequality. Among Oxfam recommendations:
– end to the gender pay gap.
Sahra Hussein Dahir, Somalia
The lost opportunity
She wanted Education, the key to a better life
She was able to find a little bit of that light
On Earth that shined in the stars up there
It was what all she and her African friends cared about
They were eager to achieve their dreams
Education, the diamond of life
Is the way a soul can be free from the dark
She walked toward the school but access was denied
Because she couldn’t afford the money
Even though it danced everywhere in her neighborhood.
It seemed she wore a mark of poverty
Which took away her opportunity
Stolen by a top class of rich billionaires
And now millions of African kids just
like her
Are blocked from education’s light.
They are lost in the dark but not allowed to shine.
They can’t find their way without our help.
You and I must stand for their rights
You and I can bring back their hope.
And give them more opportunity.
Anish Debnath, India
Irrational Differentiation
Why are there still some places on earth
where the birth of girl is mourned?
Is it the thought of dowry or the non-returning
Investment that makes her scorned?
Why is her brother more privileged?
Is it the thought of future earnings
Or the preservation of family surname that gives him the best
Education and disdains her because someday she is going to leave?
Why is she not free to go everywhere? Why is she caged?
Is it the thought of those horrible moments where the
Well-privileged cluster, making one of them brutally tainted?
Yet in that society that girl is unduly painted.
Why are there places where she has to go veiled?
The more closing inside, the higher she is scaled.
Then why would the other sex exhibit his face?
Why the rules are so unequal in the race?
This under-privileged clan has proved to be worthy of everything
They have even walked on the surface of the moon
So abandon those narrow thoughts & respect them
No birth is a curse rather it is a boon.
We, born as human, have every right to live, to desire, to go
upstairs, to foster our dreams together, holding our hands
Please don't differentiate according to our biological brands
__________
Author’s note:
– promotion of equal rights for women (there are parts of the world were women have no rights).
Luka Dezmalj, Croatia
Even If a Cynic
There are less and less
Rich people in this world of ours
More and more modern slaves
Working for a dime 23.5 hours
Thugs with six fingers
Would rather watch the world burn
Can't even learn from old Egypt or Rome
Guardians of secrets, in it too deep to return
Just keep up the pressure
Use democracy, use your right
No one needs to die, keep up the fight
Simple and undeniable math gives the light
No one should die in vain for this, no one
No one needs to die at all, no one!
And why? Simple math, so many unjust