By Ustaz Mark Bang<\/p>\n
Poverty Poverty Poverty<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Poverty, brothers, is a mouthful that’s hard to swallow,<\/p>\n A bite that sticks in your throat and leaves you in sorrow,<\/p>\n When you watch the pale faces and rheumy eyes<\/p>\n Observing you like ghosts and holding out thin hands;<\/p>\n Behind you, they lie, stretched out<\/p>\n Their whole lives through, until the moment of death.<\/p>\n Above them in the air, as if in disdain,<\/p>\n Crosses and stony minarets pierce the sky,<\/p>\n Prophets and saints in many colours radiate splendour.<\/p>\n And poverty feels betrayed.<\/p>\n Poverty carries its own vile imprint,<\/p>\n It is hideous, repulsive, disgusting.<\/p>\n The brow that bears it, the eyes that express it,<\/p>\n The lips that try in vain to hide it<\/p>\n Are the offspring of ignorance, the victims of disdain?<\/p>\n The filthy scraps flung from the table<\/p>\n At which for centuries<\/p>\n Some pitiless, insatiable dog has fed.<\/p>\n Poverty has no good fortune, only rags,<\/p>\n The tattered banners of hope<\/p>\n Shattered by broken promises.<\/p>\n Poverty wallows in debauchery.<\/p>\n In dark corners, together with dogs, rats, cats,<\/p>\n On mouldy, stinking, filthy mattresses,<\/p>\n Naked breasts exposed, sallow dirty bodies,<\/p>\n With feelings overwhelmed by bestial desire,<\/p>\n They bite, devour, suck, kiss the sullied lips,<\/p>\n And in unbridled lust, the thirst is quenched,<\/p>\n The craving stilled, and self-consciousness lost.<\/p>\n Here is the source of the imbeciles, the servants and the beggars<\/p>\n Who will tomorrow be born to fill the streets,<\/p>\n Poverty shines in the eyes of the newborn,<\/p>\n Flickers like the pale flame of a candle<\/p>\n Under a ceiling blackened with smoke and spider webs,<\/p>\n Where human shadows tremble on damp stained walls,<\/p>\n Where the ailing infant wails like a banshee<\/p>\n To suck the dry breasts of its wretched mother<\/p>\n Who, pregnant again, curses god and the devil,<\/p>\n Curses the heavy burden of her unborn child.<\/p>\n Her baby does not laugh, it only wastes away,<\/p>\n Unwanted by its mother, who curses it, too.<\/p>\n How sorrowful is the cradle of the poor<\/p>\n Where a child is rocked with tears and sighs.<\/p>\n Poverty’s child is raised in the shadows<\/p>\n Of great mansions, too high for imploring voices to reach<\/p>\n To disturb the peace and quiet of the lords<\/p>\n Sleeping in blissful beds beside their ladies.<\/p>\n Poverty matures a child before its time,<\/p>\n Teaches it to dodge the threatening fist,<\/p>\n The hand which clutches its throat in dreams,<\/p>\n When the delirium of starvation begins<\/p>\n And when death casts its shadow on childish faces,<\/p>\n Instead of a smile a hideous grimace.<\/p>\n While the fate of a fruit is to ripen and fall,<\/p>\n The child is interred not maturing at all.<\/p>\n Poverty labours and toils by day and night,<\/p>\n Chest and forehead drenched in sweat,<\/p>\n Up to the knees in mud and slime,<\/p>\n And still the empty guts writhe in hunger.<\/p>\n Starvation wages! For such a daily ordeal,<\/p>\n A mere three or four leks and an ‘On your way.’<\/p>\n Poverty sometimes paints its face,<\/p>\n Swollen lips scarlet, hollow cheeks rouged,<\/p>\n And body a chattel in a filthy trade.<\/p>\n For service in bed for which it is paid<\/p>\n With a few lousy francs,<\/p>\n Stained sheets, stained face and stained conscience.<\/p>\n Poverty leaves a heritage as well,<\/p>\n Not cash in the bank or property you can sell,<\/p>\n But distorted bones and pains in the chest,<\/p>\n Perhaps leaves the memory of a bygone day<\/p>\n When the roof of the house, weakened by decay,<\/p>\n By age and the weather collapsed and fell,<\/p>\n And above all the din rose a terrible cry<\/p>\n Cursing and imploring, as from the depths of hell,<\/p>\n The voice of a man crushed by a beam.<\/p>\n Under the heel, says the priest, of a god irate<\/p>\n Ends thus the life of a dissolute ingrate.<\/p>\n And so the memory of such misfortunes<\/p>\n Fills the cup of bitterness passed to generations.<\/p>\n Poverty in drink seeks consolation,<\/p>\n In filthy taverns, with dirty, littered tables,<\/p>\n The thirsting soul pours glass after glass<\/p>\n Down the throat to forget its many worries,<\/p>\n The dulling glass, the glass satanic,<\/p>\n Caressing with a venomous bite.<\/p>\n And when, like grain under the scythe, the man falls<\/p>\n To the floor, he giggles and sobs, a tragicomic clown,<\/p>\n And all his sorrow in drink he drowns<\/p>\n When one by one, a hundred glasses downs.<\/p>\n Poverty sets desires ablaze like stars in the night<\/p>\n And turns them to ashes, like trees struck by lightning.<\/p>\n Poverty knows no joy, but only pain,<\/p>\n Pain reducing you to such despair<\/p>\n That you seize the rope and hang yourself,<\/p>\n Or become a poor victim of ‘paragraphs.’<\/p>\n Poverty wants no pity, only justice!<\/p>\n Pity? Bastard daughter of cunning fathers,<\/p>\n Who like the Pharisees, beating the drum<\/p>\n Ostentatiously for their own sly ends,<\/p>\n Drop a penny in the beggar’s hands.<\/p>\n Poverty is an indelible stain<\/p>\n On the brow of humanity through the ages.<\/p>\n And never can this stain be effaced<\/p>\n By doctrines decaying in temples.<\/p>\n \u00a0“Public Staunchest Ally”.<\/strong><\/p>\n The writer of this article is a Human rights activist, writer and professional teacher.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Ustaz Mark Bang Poverty Poverty Poverty Poverty, brothers, is a mouthful that’s hard to swallow, A bite that sticks in your throat and leaves you in sorrow, When you watch the pale faces and rheumy eyes Observing you like ghosts and holding out thin hands; Behind you, they lie,[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oped","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Ustaz-Mark-Bang.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28284,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28282\/revisions\/28284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}