Poets Against Inequality

  Its only logical, we already won.

  Asavri Dhillon, India

  Spear in Chest

  Earth is not what it should be

  The world is heading towards an end

  With the wars, gender bias and racism

  My heart is burning with flames, becoming fierce

  I need more palms to make earth a place of living

  Ask me how hard it is

  To look into the eyes of little children

  Walking in chilly winds with just a garment on

  While many sleep in cozy beds

  Unknowing of the fact, little lives are ending before beginning

  And for a lady how hard it becomes

  When she doesn’t have anything to feed her kid

  Wages turn into debts

  Lives into hell

  That one starts praying for death

  To feel their pain

  I left my cuts open

  and saw the blood dripping down

  With each drop on the floor

  I thought of those who were all alone in streets

  Oh what life it is

  Where you're only in a race

  Life should be peaceful and hearts fearless

  Love in the air with eyes carrying dreams not hopes.

  Fabrizio Frosini, Italy

  Wax and wane

  Myth has it that the riches of the rich are good for all the people

  And such a fable has got so many performances that it’s easy

  To be swayed into thinking that it’s just the truth.

  But when I see the eyes of the poor, aloof in their bare poverty,

  And I compare their gazes with the personal greed and moral

  Shamelessness of most of the rich, I feel disgust rise inside my soul

  And I feel I share the closest brotherhood with the poorest of the poor.

  Will I ever describe all this? Maybe I do, but you have to listen to me:

  Don't chase me away like ash carried off by the wind.

  For this, as a novel bard, like a departing boat I'll go

  Crossing bridge after bridge, wiping away a few burning tears while

  Conjuring up the face I had when I first came up.

  Can you hear? Like messengers from too far away

  Words wax and wane, telling of an unfair and meaningless world,

  Revealing uncanny private realities and making all my fears naked.

  Novel bard, I’ll sing about life, but

  Only to realize I don't know what it means to actually save

  This present time and any possible future.

  Because the world has no more miracles to show —And it represents

  The most painful betrayal.

  Alem Hailu G/Kristos, Ethiopia

  Inequalities of all shades

  Though, my physically challenged, dexterous, carpenter father

  proves better than the physically fit, to his anger,

  he has never enjoyed level ground with his peers.

  From late childhood there was one thing that used to bother me,

  why was my father so discriminated against?

  On his turn, true to cultural dictates, he ill-treats my domestic, chores saddled mother.

  He heeds her not, though by the sweat of their brow,

  as responsible parents they happily brought my sister and I up together.

  I still wonder why —why— my sister who has an IQ on par with mine, if not better,

  has to help out mother, was denied the right to pursue further education, suffering a

  cold shoulder even by mom, while I was given a chance to prove a man of letters?

  I remember, crossing many a pool. Barefooted, I used to trek a long distance

  to a nearby town's a school, where for my provincial and shabby clothes

  I was seen a fool, by the relatively rich in showing courtesy far from cool.

  Though stationery they didn't lack, sadly, I had a hand tied behind my back.

  Alas, upon joining campus where I yearned for the sagacious chance, there too

  in my class, I was looked down by students, hailing from families of the top brass.

  I went abroad for a higher education, enjoying fellowship through donation,

  but worse still, I met many whose vision was colored.

  Ironically my dissertation was drawing attention to why should the broad mass

  be standers by, and with an ill-fated mark die

  While the favored, racist and the corrupt few gobble over 3/4 of the pie.

  Majid Gaggi, Iraq

  Were not we all born equal?

  Why this injustice and inequality?

  Are not we all, human beings on Earth, born equal?

  If so, why all this suffering and pain?

  We suffer and suffer, as our parents and grandparents before us.

  Is it written on our own skin that we have to suffer so much?

  For centuries, millions upon millions have been expelled from their

  Homelands. They lost everything, properties and jobs.

  They had to run barefoot with only their clothes on. Again, now!

  And it's happening before the eyes of the world

  Notwithstanding loud claims for

  Human Rights, Equality and Justice.

  But where are those human rights, freedom and peace?

  Shame! Shame on the world! On those void claims

  Made of words but no action.

  We hear so many freedom & equality trumpets blast, but

  We see no change for the better:

  My God, when will this tragedy end?

  Now we hear other loud claims on ‘Equality’.

  How unbalanced is Mankind!

  There —just a few dozen people whose wealth is larger

  Than any human imagination. Here —billions who have to struggle

  Every day for a living..

  Were not we all, human beings on Earth, born equal?

  Dimitrios Galanis, Greece

  Throngs groaning

  Throngs groaning are we in the deserts of inane pain.

  Gazing future's horizon we shed agony's sweat on blind alley

  plunged in torrents of bitter tormenting tears,

  tears of withdrawal from life's claims, dignities, pleasures mere.

  In the hands of few privileged princes the golden sceptres (*)

  over the vast majorities subjected to their arrogant greed.

  Walled up oases of opulence and delight their might.

  On what oases owe to desert's dew open kept no eye.

  Walls of arrogance can not withstand assaults of wounded sighs.

  Once exasperated furious whirlwinds they tear them down

  and then there will be no place to hide their defiance proud.

  __________

  Author's note:

  (*) Sixty-two personae possess half earth population's wealth!

  Negar Gorji, Iran

  [Wo]/Man

  “A little blue fairy

  Living in an ocean,”

  Sighing as a broken flute

  Which deafens all the scallops.

  Dreaming of an equal land

  Where women are without Wo

  And men are plus Wo

  In search of a kiss

  To live eternally

  To find the equal land,

  Going to the surface

  To hunt a Wo/man

  But sharp lips of shovels

  Wound her heart,

  The blue ocean

  Gets red —And red —And red..

  She is lying there

  She is lying..

  She is..

  She..

  sh..

  Now, listen to the sigh of scallops.

  __________

  Author's note:

  – my poetry aims to describe "Male/Female Inequality" as it is experienced in almost all (if not all) human societies, especially in culturally and economically backward c
ountries. Such an inequality means fewer rights for women, especially in education, as well as a much lower economic capacity. Fewer rights mean, also, a higher rates of violence against women;

  – “A little blue fairy / Living in an ocean”: in Forough Farrokhzad's poem 'Another Birth' (published 1962).

  Birgitta Abimbola Heikka, Nigeria

  Inequality.. a body atrophied

  Iniquitous badge of the masses

  Non-essential deemed by the minute

  Effectively effacing

  Quality of the whole and

  Unity of body as parts neglected

  Atrophy rendering

  Less efficient and

  Inharmonious to the whole to

  Triumph as a body of unbroken spirits

  Yearning for equilibrium.

  Galina Italyanskaya, Russia

  Not enough

  Poor guy, you’re bloody rich; even Forbes doesn’t know how much!

  One may dream of your fortune, which you take every chance to enlarge.

  New technologies, oil and gas, modern weapons and, maybe, drugs –

  Many ways to achieve success, many efforts to top the slugs.

  You were taught from the early years to despise them, the vulgar herd.

  Take the best from the world! No shares! It’s for trade, not for breaking bread.

  And to please your exclusiveness simple kindness is not enough.

  Although, if you can’t buy some love, you can certainly pay for sex.

  You believe in the power of gold. You believe, it’s your joker card.

  So you’ve stamped the name of God on your monies, not in your heart.

  Never tired of being a slave of your endless excessive claims

  You look serious as a grave, feeling tired of something else.

  Go to bed, which is pure down! But somehow it can’t give a rest.

  Will you order another one? You’ve got twenty of them, no less.

  Sleeping pills, worth their weight in gold, make you dream of a poor girl

  Dying slow of hunger and cold on the other side of the Wall..

  Sirens wailed around the block. What is sinking inside your chest?

  It’s your heart like a lagging clock. It’s your Death, unexpected guest.

  We are peers in His lethal clutch, and your power was a bluff.

  Immortality is too much – all your money is not enough.

  Never mind, if you missed it: nothing worthy of bitter tears,

  'Cause Eternity isn’t sweet, if there’s no one to share it with.

  Afrooz Jafarinoor, Iran

  To a rich Singer

  When I was reviewing the tenses

  With my English students,

  I had one tell the class a biography,

  No wonder she thought of a celebrity!

  She talked of you passionately

  While others listened patiently.

  She told us of your past and present,

  What you have done or yet haven't!

  You and I both make a living

  Out of the words we are repeating,

  But she said you are one of the richest,

  Which is a bit hard for me to digest!

  I have studied a lot and worked hard as a teacher,

  But I don't think I will ever be as good as a native speaker

  Because life in an English speaking country

  Is still just a dream for me;

  Because the words spoken by a teacher

  Are worth a millionth of those by a top singer!

  You repeat words and so do I,

  You are paid and so am I,

  The same words are making you richer and richer

  While I always have to worry about the future!

  I respect you sir for all your songs of quality,

  But the only song I know is that of inequality!

  Farzad Jahanbani, Iran

  North, Center, South

  The world;

  The city,

  In the North,

  Is climbing up the mountain;

  Is advancing in the forest;

  Is expanding into the sea.

  Far from there;

  In the center;

  Is rich from Humanness;

  Is moderate in Honour;

  Is poor from Heartless;

  In the center;

  Far from there.

  Is contracting into the filth;

  Is regressing in the wilderness;

  Is falling down the crevasse;

  In the South,

  The city;

  The world.

  __________

  Author's note:

  Here, 'North' and 'South' have two meanings: rich & developed countries / rich areas in cities, opposed to poor & undeveloped countries / poor areas in cities. This poem has a symmetric structure, and in modern Persian Literature, its form is called 'Loop', as the beginning and the end of the poem have the same words.

  Sergio Jaime, México

  We exist

  There must be, there has to be.

  What makes me special? What I should feel?

  Has the world always been divided?

  Who has decided my place in the gap?

  There are the ones that care, and beloved ones,

  those suffering the misery, those of loneliness in heart.

  In which part of the way does the division appear?

  Are we really that apart, you and me?

  And since the spring of life has been decided,

  any of you gods,

  what sense then?

  We are all human,

  we are from different worlds,

  yet, we share the same land,

  we have the same hope.

  Are you really that rich?

  Am I really that poor?

  Why does such an absolute inequality have to be

  experienced by Humanity?

  Why a few tens of people have to possess half of

  everything, while hundred millions are starving..?

  Seema Jayaraman, India

  Inequality – In You The Rich Thrive, Soul Denied

  Convoluted Man's history, regales sagas of Inequality,

  disappearing mysteriously, into coffers and sovereignty

  A global allegiance, citizenship exclusive, two and sixty

  Truth be told, the elite thrive, their franchises feed frenziedly

  The poor, the fuel, the fodder, gluttons honed to depravity

  Multinationals and their wealth supersede nations,

  God, more easily found than their parent organizations

  Stolen wealth of common man, shored up in foreign vaults

  They devise Clever interludes, havens for siphoned billions

  A derisive dollar as tax, they snigger and appease conscience

  Women and children, the lowest rung of victims

  Underpaid, sold for father's pyre, raped, she fills niches

  Starving, naked in winter, her babies untended, she feeds dependents

  In glass lined skyscrapers, on stiletto, she tip-toes

  Masquerading rag picker through scraps of company revenues

  Whenever Inequality tilts scales, history sings defiant tales

  Nineteenth century, In protest of tax on Breasts

  Nangeli of Cherthala, offered on plantain her chopped breasts

  Mahatma Gandhiji for the right to Salt, walked 'Dandi' miles

  To burn the diamond castle, 'Sati' of poor, a conflagration perhaps

  Staggering, a poor earth awaits the birth of an alchemist Einstein

  With a magical formula, a Robin-hood snatches one percent's trillion

  Were it not to come, to reformat this inequality, a time machine,

  Send a curse, a pestilence on humanity to lay man's seed barren,

  Lest the rich, one day, roads they pave with poor flesh human.

  Srijana KC Neupane, Nepal

  Ingrained Inequality

  Fine, I like algebr
a, but what's the fun

  to solve equations where X and Y are already done?

  Yes, from the middle, I have 20/20 vision

  like all of us, I easily spot the unequal division.

  Should I hold the scale as covetous cats quarrel for cake,

  while mendacious monkeys bite all the pieces, no give all take?

  Like in the fable, I see bankers battle to balance imbalance with frivolity

  as economists try to equivocally equate inequality.

  Should I watch this final dark age of vice unfold?

  Observe our civilization degenerating as foretold?

  The religious preach Karma while brainy brilliants claim evolution.

  And billionaires elude egalitarians to promote a status-quo solution.

  Yes, I see the one percent shining in gilded gold.

  Should I revolt, go on a hunger strike, to not be controlled?

  What about diverse diligent donkeys blinded and grasping for the cream?

  They’ll just replace me and equality will remain an impossible dream.

  Is it better I sit back in the middle of my lousy couch

  watch the antipodes, eat unbuttered popcorn from a pouch

  –heartrending privation, extravagance, silently stealth–

  Or do I stand up; speak out against languidly levied wealth?

  __________

  Author's note:

  Kali Yuga (Devanāgarī: lit. age of [the demon] Kali, or age of vice) is the last of four stages the world goes through as part of the cycle of Yugas, described in the Sanskrit scriptures, within the present Mahayuga. The other ages are called Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, and Dvapara Yuga.

  Phumla Xuza Khanyile, South Africa

  Born to die

  So sad is the sight, so sad I wish to turn away

  To be blinded to the fact, to pretend I never saw

  To bury the memory in a lonely shallow grave

  Just as his little bones were coldly laid

  He never stood a chance against the monsters of our time

  His little dreams got shattered as he came

  For he came to a world so unaccommodating

  Laid in the hands of a family so wanting

  He arrived in a world plagued by struggles

  With not as much an ululating song

  His moment of joy got stolen by sadness

  As his mother’s heart broke in helplessness

  In her hands she held a life slowly fading

  An extra mouth to feed with not much to give