social inequality poems

Division | Alexis Garcia

Since when did white America
Become the right America
I’ll tell you
Once shackles and chains
Got replaced by ignorant brains
They think we have welcomed
Prejudices and absurd allegations
Since we have become a divided nation
Since some fight the grossness of injustice
With protests in abundance
They tend to focus on the ones who pretend
Not to notice that we as a society
Are reverting back to a time
Where rights were conditional, not given
Where the color of your skin
Was used for target practice
And you were driven,
Almost to extinction
Because of the distinction between us and them
It’s been hard to determine
Who’s foe and who’s friend
Thanks to their privilege
We get to sit back
While they pillage our homes
It takes a village…
To raise a child
But as soon as they step outside
They’re stepping into the wild
Lines are getting blurred
Tensions are brewing
Racism Trumps human decency
They ignore the fact that
We are the ones they are screwing
With rapid frequency, they hunt us down
And the sound of our exhausted voices
Amplifies their need to subdue
Our personal choices.
They take silence as a sign of defeat
They take silence as a sign of acceptance
From the beginning of time
We were never the ones to retreat
But snap back into reality
And come to our senses
At the expense of our sanity
We let those who came from
The Caucasus Mountains
Straight to the oval office
Profit off of our sorrows
They have stolen our lands
But convince us that they just borrow
With no intention of returning
It’s concerning how little resistance
There is on our part
The fight’s never over
They may try to poison our minds
But they can’t infiltrate our hearts.

At the Wall | Roy Pullam

The wall stands somber
On that windy morning
Gales blowing rain
Into my face
I look at the names
Finding a school chum
A poor boy
His fate sealed
By lack of opportunity
Not unlike
Other 1A card carriers
Unable to afford college
To find a doctor
Who would shield them
From the draft
He believed
Willing to wear
The green
To fight in a land
Beyond his knowledge
One day in America
Experiencing the good life
The next
Landing in a strange world
A land of constant
Uncertainty
Four months
Of wading paddies
Four months of ambushes
Intense firefights
Then the pajama-clad phantoms
Disappeared
A land mine
In a clearing
A fatal step
And his life ended
Not the homecoming
We wished for him
But we gathered
Just the same
To hear the minister
Searching for an answer
Then sharing memories
Good times
With the boy
We knew
I took the paper
Placing it
Against the wall
Dragging the pencil
Across the paper
His name rising
On the page
Bold letters
I have read
Over and over
Remembering each time
The futility of Vietnam

Market Survey | Ankita Anand

The rich write books
About how they got out of their rags
And that’s fair enough.
But is there a market
For other stories of miracle?
Stories by those who have the remains of the day
And yet remain.
Of those who live a little above, below, around the lines of poverty–
Measured and cut out for them by others
At a table with chairs made by, not for, them–
And yet manage to have lives.
Can that blurb produce a wow,
Inspire the reader to pick up the book?
Or do we predict more of a shrug, because the story is ordinary, because “they’re used to it”?

More at https://anandankita.blogspot.in.

Grenfell | Dan Tindall

This morning everything
Tasted like dust
And the lustful blast
Of life and love
Was just a blushing
Empty husk of
Ashes

Plastic melts
Copper unwinds
Lights clears through smoke
Filling chambered hollows
With fiery ghosts
Fitted with the latest gear
To roast the souls
Of the gangster kings and queens

More at http://www.dantindall.com.

So Who Exactly Is Working for Whom? | Dan Tindall

Fake news, foreign wars
And wiki-leaking
Generally speaking has
Only come to defence of the
Enemies of freedom
Not the voices of the lost
Or the poor who are the cost of
Making money at the double
Dollar euro rouble

So who exactly is working for whom?

I don’t see refugees resettled
Or rust belts get re-metalled
Hard-won rights are stripped and beaten
There’s fracking poison in the food you’ve eaten
Oil in water
Cancerous air
But the big boys don’t care

The proles loved Caesar because he said he was their guy
(He wasn’t)
His in-laws and friends killed him because they thought he meant it
(He didn’t)

So who exactly is working for whom?

More at http://www.dantindall.com.

Rear Entrance | JD DeHart

They told him to go
to the back door, face
the wrong shade
to walk in the front

Years later they would
tell him the playing
field was equal, those
were the sins of long-
ago ancestors

They would tell him
he lives in a country
that is longer racist,
sexist, or classist

But he would take
a long look around
and beg to differ.

More at http://jddehartpoetry.blogspot.com/.

Step into My Shoes | Marsha Owens

…he writes on the cell floor,
all to say, “tread on me
then hear
my whisper
caress this cell,
then feel my heart
beat, forgotten
kids wrapped in razor
wire in this pipeline
from school to prison
scream into the night.”

He scribbles “I’m scared,”
then writes his story entitled
“The End.”

(Art 180 in Richmond, Virginia encourages incarcerated youth to find expression through the arts. Virginia refers more youth to law enforcement than any other state. NPR News, 2016)

Copy Paper Condition | Langley Shazor

Three times now
I have heard someone use the term colored
And all three times
I had the same thought
“Just what color am I supposed to be?”
Furthermore
If this color is the recipient of derogatory comments
A capitulator of negative connotations
An obstruction of the natural order of things
Why is so much time and money spent
Typically, excessive attention given to
Strange rituals
Vain pursuits
Perverse attempts to obtain it

Systemic Depression | Tana Cambrelen

They killed my ancestors for being black.
They killed my ancestors for slavery.
They killed my ancestors for speaking back.
They killed my ancestors for trying to be free.
Yet they called us the problem.
I hope they don’t kill me.

They killed my grandparents over protests.
They killed my grandparents because they wanted equal rights.
They killed my grandparents because they wanted the same restrooms.
They killed my grandparents because they put up a fight.
Yet we’re a problem.
I hope they don’t kill me.

They killed my daddy over cigarettes.
They killed my brother over skittles and iced tea.
They killed my sister for sleeping on the sofa.
They killed my uncle for CDs.
They killed my aunt for “driving recklessly.”

They’re still calling us the problem.
They’ve stripped me of my family.
If I call them the problem,
they will probably kill me.
I’ll be another hashtag on Twitter.
My sister will lose a sister,
while my murderer walks free
as I’m buried six feet under
simply for being me.

The Great Indian Mourning | Sunil Sharma

When little Rita died, her anemic Ma cried,
This eight-year-old was the quietest
Of the big quarreling brood.
Always caring for me and others,
Bringing leftovers from the families
Where the child ceaselessly worked long hours,
Her slender back broken by the labour of two adults,
Now she is no more, my precious child!
What will I do now?
Who else will do her chores?
She brought a few hundred rupees in our unlit hovel
We are poorer by those few hundreds.

Another rugged woman muttered,
Grieve not, sister Sita,
Your second daughter is finally free
From regular beatings by her drunk father,
And hunger and possible multiple rapes
By the rich slumlords and others in eternal wait.
The poor child is free at last!
And gone to heaven, we all hope so,
The poor are the favourite of God,
So the holy books say.
But we, the graying women
Are still hapless prey
To the male lust and power
That makes us cower,
In impoverished homes.

More at http://www.drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/.

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