Breadline Poems | Examples


Premium MemberStanding In the Breadline

Did you get the memo from the boss

Stocks are way down they took a big loss

Now he said he can't afford our pay

Looks like unemployment's on the way
Categories: breadline, jobs, work,
Form: Rhyme

Nanny State

I, the blue-eyed, bright haired reprobate,
A product of the nanny state,
raised on free-to-air TV 
and value cans of rice pudding,
lament the current climate
on a tiresome bus ride home,
glasses fogged from temperature change and
watch the world flit idly by.
Thoughts of  evening news linger inside,
despair and poverty,
people just like me, 
like old, rotten cladding, 
crumbling under social pressure.
Us nanny state kids, 
council-estate bred 
with ideas above our stations,
are a damp squib on far right projections
of lazy people addled with benefits,
mass-producing offspring
in our small council-owned factory homes.
The future of this Divided Nation
lies in the hands, hearts and minds
of breadline babies and charity children.
It lies with the people
who traverse dangerous waters
in plastic boats, entrusting 
their lives to the ocean 
instead of guaranteeing their demise
on unstable land.
The nanny state has a habit
of mollycoddling, smothering
its most vulnerable with
all the extra support they need
to make their short time
on this sodden planet
just 
a 
little 
more
bearable.
Categories: breadline, allegory, political,
Form: Free verse


Premium MemberGoing Forward

GOING FORWARD

Who will bring about World War three,
Which continent will it be,
To unlock the frustrations of the poor,
From within their very core,
And unleash their long felt wrath,
A wrath that arose from an,
Impoverished and hopeless path.
A wrath that will be unleashed 
On the rich and elite,
Bringing forward millions of feet.
As there is a huge dividing line,
It is just a matter of time.
Until the poor will rise,
And want to claim first prize!
Countries must now unite,
To settle this breadline fight,
Not wait for a chaotic state, 
Not let history record this date.
Education is the essential key,
For everyone including you and me,
And should open many a door,
To the impoverished poor.
If we go forward in this way,
We will engage the poor to 
Have their say,
Equality will then be the order
Of the day.

RE-POST -ORIGINAL POSTED IN JANUARY 2019 - 
Felt this poem was applicable to todays turbulent unrest.
Categories: breadline, war,
Form: Rhyme

Premium MemberPaul and Lidia Marino

Paul and Lydia were ambushed  
while paying respect to their son. 
Even a place of final rest isn't safe anymore. 

The killer was BLACK, the elderly couple were WHITE.
That's why it moved at the speed of light...
to the back of the news breadline.
BLACK on WHITE crime just doesn't sell as well,
as a WHITE knee crushing a BLACK neck does).
Ratings won't pop like it does for a poor BLACK man
being tapped out by a rogue WHITE cop.
With that you get the added ratings boost 
once the rioting and looting starts.
After all isn't it a real hoot 
watching a city burn and gutted.

Paul and Lidia couldn't breathe either.
Where is the outrage?
Where are the civil rights activist?
Where are those two rabid reverends?
Why do we not ever call BLACK on WHITE crime
a hate crime?
Nobody is taking banners to the streets
for Paul and Lidia.
Nobody is breathing for them.
Somebody must breathe for them.
Toss kindling atop this stack of complacency. 
In honor of Paul and Lidia
(since it won't be the media) 
it may as well be me... a nobody.

Rest in peace Paul and Lidia Marino,
killed by a Black racist in a veterans cemetery.
Categories: breadline, america, black african american,
Form: Rhyme

Premium MemberGoing Forward

GOING FORWARD

What could bring about World War three,
Which continent will it be,
To unlock the frustrations of the poor,
From within their very core,
And unleash their long felt wrath,
A wrath that arose from an,
Impoverished and hopeless path.
A wrath would be unleashed on the 
rich and elite,
Bringing forward millions of feet.
As there is a huge dividing line,
It is just a matter of time.
Until the poor will rise,
And want to claim first prize!
Countries must now unite,
To settle this breadline fight,
Not wait for a chaotic state, 
Not let history record this date.
Education is the essential key,
For everyone including you and me,
And should open many a door,
To the impoverished poor.
If we go forward in this way,
We will engage the poor to 
Have their say,
Equality will then be the order
Of the day.
Categories: breadline, education,
Form: Rhyme


Bread Line Nation

He is living on the breadline, He is cold and hungry with no support line. Money comes in and slips through his hands a capital version of hourglass sands. The hunger used to drive him but now he is weak. The cold has seeped through to his bones, we wonders and drifts looking for somewhere to call home. 
Once he was a soldier he stood proud and tall and no body told him that pride comes before a fall. He fell and he fell too many miles to count. he injured his leg and the army kicked him out.
The breadline stands between him and his life the life that was lost because he cant pay his way out. The stress ate him up in its endless starvation along with the rest of the breadline nation.
Categories: breadline, abuse, grief, military, people,
Form: Free verse

This Life...

They wined with Croesus
While he staggered on the breadline.
When he crossed the Styx
Gold and diamond ran for cover!
Categories: breadline, introspection
Form: Free verse

13 Mayhem Street

A few meters from me is a man
on the breadline; secluded; a beggar—
with his cluttered suit and long parched hair—
add to that a greasy hand
        beseeching silvers from the people
        wryly staring at him 
        (at the life he didn’t choose) as they pass by;
        but no one seemed to mind.

At the other flank of the street is a soul—
murdered; guillotined; a victim—
amid her blood-smeared gown
she has been sauntering back and forth:
        pleading for justice
        (and perhaps searching for her head);
        but how could people help out,
        they couldn’t notice her.

Above me is a bird—
homeless; ravenous; a sufferer
of men’s egotistical doings.
Now he has nowhere to go—
        no trees to put up a nest;
        (and possibly, no bird of the same feather);
        and a breeze of infected air—
        all because no one seemed to care.

As the day turned into night—
uplifted; inspired; a noble man I became,
by these enormous stories I witnessed
that only few are able to see.
Categories: breadline, life, people, satire, urban,
Form: Narrative
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