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
Poets Against Inequality Page 3