*****

Recorded Reading (3:48): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ke7acr2fqckmdw6zekr9q/Thirty-Dirty-Days.mp3?rlkey=kx9bblo99mfml6m5c8fnfg2j9&dl=0

*****

Thirty Dirty Days

In this life, harried and harassed,
I’ve found home through many a door
Bantered refinements with the rich
Sweated with the poor

Quite the superior self sense
I know the educated keep
Thinking their fine minds above
Those considered fast asleep

And I know that the ignorant,
Though not equipped this truth to say,
Are actually equals in
Every important way

Oft times even superiors,
No matter how seeming debased
By unimaginable trials
The other man has never faced

And this perception proven was ~
A study done recently of
Several apartments full
Of folk were drawn from up above

The levels of society
At which we tend to find
Those who must learn, to get along,
To one another to be kind

Then, further, these entitled ones
Were strictly limited unto
The budgetary strictures
Mandatory to

Recip’ients of our public dole
Nor permitted were to be
In any way the agents of
Additional prosperity

Before, think you, chaos complete
Ran rampant in that neighborhood,
Before the crass and violent
Erased all vestiges of good

Before those people understood
What it was to sink
Beneath tides of human despair —
How long, then, do you think?

Since, ‘ere you reached the title
Of this work, you did not have to fight,
Both your eyes were still open, and
You probably remember right:

Less than a month elapsed before
Their civilized sup’rior pride
Was trampled and forgotten
Completely kicked aside

In favor of hysterical
And fruitless bickering
Increasingly petty revenge
And crime ~ those “virtuous” it bring!

Wear you a suit and tie
And regularly pay your bills?
Convinced are you our country’s justice
Remedies all ills?

I challenge you to live
On only food stamps for one week
Before, compromised, faint and weak,
Of others’ selfishness you speak

Eat unspiced lentils for a month
Have your child ripped away from you
That unbelieving moment
The last that child you’ll ever view

Live for one day, a human born
With lovely pigment in your skin
Just one day — and following night —
Our Southern regions in

This is the lesson, this the point
This is the fulcrum, this the crux:
No one of us is “better than”
Any of the rest of us

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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