We are human clay
Clay pots for the Lord’s display
And as we are led in a cruciform way
It is the Lord who will restore the cracks with new clay
But the cracks are to be seen and known
As we grow in Christ and our light dimly shown
That Light will break forth through every crack
And like Gideon’s Army will break forth
with the Light that we lack
So goes the pugilistic efforts that we’ve offered
Beating the air in our futility that’s proffered
But our fight is shown in the cracks of the jars
It’s shown in this life through living scars
But it’s shown to give glory to the One that’s in charge
It shows through the cracks in both young and old jars
So, Jesus repairs you and me
He uses His kintsugi
To mend the pottery
The fractured pitcher of you and me
(He uses silver and gold and His Refiner’s fire
To refine our focus towards Him our Desire)
The Desire of all nations bursts forth
in the breaking of the clay
We will share in a new life that’s breaking today
Its a wildlife belt
when the money runs out
A roadside blemish
with knee high grass
Fast food wrappers
and everyday trash
Road markings so faded
Your just taking a good guess
If it rains cats and dogs a boats your best bet
Shops with closed shutters
and there's no businesses left
The Food banks are expanding
And kids dressed in charity shop seconds
A politicians promises just trip off his lips
and float in the air
then disappear like breath
on a cold frosty night.
or when your electricity's ran out.
The silent pain of poor,is the biggest call for Humanity...
Sponsor: Brain Strand
poverty's sharp edges cut off the grey beggar tonight.
monsoon rains overpoured, becoming grave floods, sweeping him
from the bridge, where he had often trolled with a fair measure of hope.
between coal-coloured stalactite teeth, his gross breath, wan mouth,
an endangered smile, oily eyes, raisin skin, copper hair;
loose, smutty digits outstretched for some particular solution—
change to spare, a bottle of coke, a hot dog, a lead pipe.
living phantom rattled young children, disquieted air
of the earth, his chamber and bath (ordinarily trivial)
to those beyond stones, cloth huts, the doldrums of the have-nots,
targets of practising mendicants—grateful for temu,
the credit card religions, pseudo-prada, black friday options
empty cup held out, ready to receive rain~ thirst knows what it lacks.
Welcome to Sapele, a small city
In Delta State, Nigeria to be precise
The land of rubber, timber, oil and gas
The land of tourism
Once the most peaceful city, now terrifying
Once resourceful, now lacking and slacking.
No infrastructure, but so many hotels
Girls reside just like hostels
For prostitution
A city filled with corruption
Boys carrying out atrocity
Because of instability
Disrupting the city, causing insecurity
Just to live impressively
So many graduates without occupation
Poverty is the mother of crimes.
Camouflage everywhere
Trying to prove them competence
Over evidence
Beating and harassing
Whosoever don't go their way
But they've never apprehended a criminal
Steadily oppressing and collecting bribes
Just to feed and defend their tribes
Now you see a black man
Enslaving another black man
Just to feel superior over the minors.
Shhh! Can you hear the hunger’s moan,
Children hollow, left alone?
Silent streets where shadows yearn,
We burn, we burn, for you to learn.
Shhh! Feel the hands that grasp for air,
Empty bowls, and vacant stare.
Your quiet gaze lets chains remain,
We rise in fire to break the chain.
Shhh! Listen close, the walls will speak,
For every lost, for every weak.
The flames of truth cannot be tamed,
Our voices roar, though you’ve restrained.
Shhh! See the pain behind your door,
The hungry cries you can’t ignore.
If silence kills, then hear this plea,
We scream for justice, for you to see.
Shhh! Now feel the embers grow,
From broken streets, the fires show.
No longer whispers, we claim our turn,
Hear us, stand with us, we burn, we burn.
Shhh! The silenced rise, no longer still,
Our voices rise against your will.
For every life ignored, unseen,
We fight, we speak, for what has been.
A chill breeze blows in the ghetto
radiators silent -- empty cupboards rattle
Raw hands wince from the sting of snow
a chill breeze blows in the ghetto
A mother huddles with her brood in a drafty room
no heat emanates from the ice-cold moon
Their cries die in the wind-swept snow
~ a chill breeze blows in the ghetto
For a century and more
the socialist drumbeat and march
Workers of the world unite
no more capitalist oligarchs
Bloody Soviet-style communism under Vladimir Lenin
gave way to mass murderer, Iosif Stalin
The Weimar Republic fell before ‘enlightened socialism’
swiftly changing to jack-booted Nazi fascism
Cuba’s revolution, North Korea’s, the Viet Cong’s
O, Civilization, where has the world gone wrong
Today we see misery in Venezuela, Pakistan and Iran
Repeating the tragedy of China’s Mao Zedong
For a century and more, the socialist drumbeat and march
food deserts abounding, humanity’s throats dry and parched
TEXTURE OF MINIMALISM: Title - Denim
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Date: 16-Nov-2025
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Old dirty blues,
Lived in and once beloved.
All that dirt speaks of time -
Stains mark a living hard earned.
Faded hand prints,
Of the love lost on the way,
Dreams of home not to be --
Pocket heavy with pennies.
I was born with a voice —
small, shaking, softer than the world’s noise —
but still a voice.
So were you.
Across oceans and dust roads,
in cities that never sleep
and villages whispering to the wind,
we rise with different tongues
but the same longing to matter.
Some learned courage from mothers
who stitched hope into torn pockets.
Some learned strength from fathers
who carried silence for safety.
Some found it alone,
fighting invisible shadows.
Yet every one of us
carries a stubborn flame
that refuses to die.
We have seen children turn to soldiers,
heard prayers drowned by bombs,
watched hands meant for holding
become shields for survival.
Still — we rise.
Every time one voice cracks,
another rises beside it.
Every time injustice tightens its fist,
a thousand hearts beat louder.
Human rights are not laws on paper —
they are breaths, bones, dreams.
Peace is not a distant country —
it is a choice built
from broken pieces
and offered hands.
We are the poem the world needs.
We are the chorus grief cannot silence.
We are the voice that will not break
until every life
is honored as a life.
Windows blink.
Someone’s still awake,
counting what never adds up.
The billboard’s face glows through the haze,
selling hope to those who can’t afford it.
Clouds crawl like old memories,
stretching their shadows
across the quiet of the soup line.
Rain begins, soft as loose change.
It never reaches the roots.
The sky eats gold again,
and no one seems surprised.
~Brent R. Grimes
Our laws are at best, temporary
for the SCOTUS can hear each appeal
And the ones which had once been decided
change again, with each new dirty deal
When the wealthy want new legislation
they refill their appointed Rep’s till
For America runs on the taxes
and the votes donors buy on The Hill
Our system is poisoned with money
as the votes are prepaid at campaigns
Afterwards, Congress files in the Chamber
to fulfill promised corporate gains
As the people live paycheck to paycheck
and appeal to their Reps in D.C.
All the capitalists label them
socialists
It’s unsure who the U.S. will be
Will the people who fund all the programs
choose a leader who knows how to fight
Or will we descend into darkness
where only the rich live in light
The clinic is closed,
The doctors have left the state,
The patients still wait.
Written: November 05, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Hilo Poet
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He ruled with a rakish grin ... a slack scythe in his sanguine fist—
A pharaoh of spurious gloat ... redolent of lard and treacle,
His laws ratified in rapture ... festooned the sacred with spit.
A seraglio of skeuomorphs ... hailed his wondrous fashion sense—
The riparian fields sank ... in soaked squalor and dysania,
He wore a nimbus of stink ... a stygian sherpa to dire fate.
In his sesquipedalian bragging ... the soul of land grew slack—
Each boast is a blur, each law ... a grieving gasp of suction,
Even the seraphic ibis flinched ... its wings dimmed by his shadow.
With tales of Siamese stars and stew ... he won over the jury—
Though the slack-jawed and gaunt group ... gnawed on serendipity bones,
There was no spark ... just the sizzle of sand in a dying sun.
Now his tomb lies amid a cold dune ... decked with dysenteric myths—
A janiform relic of zeitgeist and treason ... stripped of all zest,
The sovereign ruin ... no ripple, no ravel, no rove of resile.
Specific Types of Poverty Poems
Definition | What is Poverty in Poetry?
Poems Related to Poverty
bankruptcy, debt, hardship, lack, famine, difficulty, scarcity, shortage, starvation, deficit, distress, privation, dearth, vacancy, deficiency, pass, meagerness, emptiness, inadequacy, indigence, depletion, reduction, impoverishment, pennilessness, insolvency