Inequality Poems

Equalizing America

(“Enemy of the State Merit Badge”, 2011, original oil)

Equalizing America

All individuals are equal in being each an individual
Created as equal, in God’s image so to speak,
Equally deserving what it takes to survive and thrive.
But beyond this birthright
Of life, liberty and the pursuit of private property,
The reality is everyone and everyone’s situation is different.
And this is

To the mother they stole

To my mama they stole,

I dont blame you for what was done
You sacrificed your life for my childhood
You fought for my right of innocence 
You spoke so I could have freedom

It's not your fault
You were just born black
I'm not old enough to understand why
But i do understand your love
I feel it even in your absence

Chains for the Weak

If you hold a gun and I hold a gun,
we can talk about law.
If you hold a knife and I hold a knife,
we can talk about rules.
If you come empty-handed and I come empty-handed,
we can talk about reason.
But if you have a gun and I only have a knife,
then the truth lies in your hands.
If

WHAT IS IT ABOUT GENDER?

Do we truly know
what strength really means?
Is it just muscle and might
or the courage to rise after breaking?

Wisdom isn’t worn on bodies.
Every head holds thought
every mind can lead
so why is wisdom still weighed by gender?

What does care look like?
Is it soft hands and lullabies
or is it presence in pain
a heart that listens when words fall

The Bath House

Atop a bed of plastic
In a house made of bone
I am helpless to feel Rome’s revival
Men become sheep and wolves
Crusaders line up for war
Careless toward their fellow heretic
Houses burn
Stone pillars rise from foundations
All as the sands of time bury the path forward
Yet even as they do, water still runs in the bath house

Shelters of Silence

"In the USA, vacant homes by thousands thrive, 
while countless homeless struggle to survive. 
In a land of plenty, such homes stand bare, 
as lost souls grow, wandering in despair."

A BEGGAR BY THE GATE

I returned home, weary from the day,
The beggar girl was at the gate again.
Her father works the land, yet poverty remains,
She asks for five rupees, quiet in her pain.

My son, just her age, once asked with care,
"Why does she beg when her parents work there?"
"Farmers stay poor, though they toil and sow,
Those who buy and

Dinner Scraps

Dinner scraps, primal deathtraps.
Life’s meal is the class struggle,
and some of us are left starving.
We are the movement of the masses,
a sleeping colossus running on
corporate time.

Dinner scraps, merciless steel traps.
We are measured only as commodities. 
We give our lives as wage chattel.
We make our homes or lose them
on the edges of a time clock.

Dinner scraps,

A Call

Attending school was never an option when the empty drum echoes the song of yearning grains, trekking the lanes with bathroom slippers that awaits a welcoming party in the municipal waste truck while idanuwa na zubar da kwalla.

Bafflement grips me when some sit in their Sunday best with glossy heels kicking a storm for not

Inequality

A poor man's kacha house,
a shelter simple and alone
amid the concrete houses
of the rich neighbours.

He dreams of a distant place,
the backcountry calls
with its equal embrace
where the status levels,
and pride give grace.

Of the Cemetery and of the Graveyard

Gather 'round, young ones, and heed my words,
The truth has been consumed, its head submerged,
To depths far from light.

Recall, just a few market days past,
It was shrouded in shadows, veiled by lies that would forever last.

For most of the living you see, have perfected the art,
Of twisting reality, of bias that distorts the heart.
Disguising traps

An Unbalanced Equation

("A Question of Balance", 2019, original encaustic)

An Unbalanced Equation

My wife is in the middle of her cataract procedure,
One eye done and another to go.
Generally, it’s a remarkable thing
Which we take for granted -
Both our sight and the technology to repair it.

I think of the doctor doing her surgery
How he helps hundreds a year
And tens of

The Bee Poem

Did you know there are more than 20,000 known species of bees, but only 5 percent are social bees? Only 5 percent allow you to get to know them. They’re minding their business, building their nests, and you interrupt their day to tell them, “You’re not like other bees,” because to you that’s such a

White Privilege

I have never been arrested,
abused, discarded, neglected.
All because someone protested,
it’s my color they detested.

I have always been protected, 
accepted, respected, vested.
Civil rights never molested,
my freedom never contested.

No one has ever suggested,
because I’m black I’m now suspected.
To be so badly infected,
that it cannot be corrected.

Let this message be digested,
if we want this life perfected.
We must all

Walls Divide

A wall divides
me from that
peace of mind. 
A peace I hope
one day I'll find.
But unti then,
I stare at the wall
and wonder 
how its fair
to break down
when it was I
who did the hurting.

I stare at the wall
and I know
it was never fair. 
That's what he 
called it,
what he always said. 
Like a broken record
reminding me
it would

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