Her hair is golden
Her eyes are iron purple
Her kisses are a sip of chocolate
Her fingers slip through diamond rings
Her feet stroll in silver shoes
Her clothes dip in fragrance
In a drip of crude oil
A drop of black gold
II
All she wakes up to, eternally
Walking across, to and from,
Is an empty plate
Her bread unbuttered
Always embattled
Battered
Embittered
Mentored, lettered
Yet never better
All she walks past
Since times past
Arable, ploughable, but lying idle
Is a fallow land, unharrowed field
Languishing lazily
Never does she know when time has passed
What time it is
What today brings
What tomorrow holds
All she works with, or without
A hand penned, and pencilled by a pen master
An emptied hand
A hand not to fend for her
Only a cap held in hand
Ever a stretching hand, cupped for handouts
Always a lending hand on hand
All she winks at, passively
In a give and take
Is a giveaway:
“Come and take all therein, all there is
All for free, nearly
For all I care, if I care
Leave as little as you care
It’s all I care, to share
To reap
to keep”
All that wrecks her, fatally
When she sneezes, it’s sleaze
A big slice off her cake
When she coughs, it’s rough stuff
Eating her away, eating her off
All she crafts, is graft
Grafted, drafted under her wakeful watch
To wreck her ship
To run her ship aground
Again, and again, and again!
III
As she strives to tear herself apart
As she waits to begin from the start
Peers sneer at her, taunt her
As belonging to a dark continent
As wreaking a bleak future
On her
And all belonging to her
All she reeks of
out of her mouth:
“I am black and proud”
The post Poetry Corner: Durable Poverty appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.
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