In the Ghetto

In the ghetto where I was born and raised, Scarce food on my plate, and with none to praise;

In the blackest grime was I spawned to waste

Heaven’s gift of life; so let death make haste ***

Down in the slum of the lowest life Where poverty’s rampant virulence rife We eke our existence amidst all strife

To live out the day and somehow survive ***

Here in this heart rotten at the core Doomed upon birth to bear the cross of woe; Whom fate has condemned to virtues deplore

We ooze but the stink of vice from each pore ***

Within this cramped hell we perforce call home

We feast God’s bread and we toast His tome; We hail the full praise that’s heaped upon slime

Though it doesn’t erase the grief in our clime ***

We sing hallelujah, we sing the Lord’s praise And raise our spirits though denied His grace; Condemned to be though we Him but embrace

God damned, God forsaken in God’s own disgrace

***

We ask him why Lord, why us and why this Pain dealt to the mass, to the few doled bliss; Is this the quaint way of supreme just

To make us all equal only in the dust.

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Yet aren’t we but men, the same flesh and blood

Same yet divided in poverty’s flood; Denied wealth’s delight, debarred from life’s joys

We’re asked to adopt the high moral poise ***

When we cannot but afford the next square meal

You ask us outcastes to follow with zeal Commandments of God designed for your perch

To protect your world you ask us to kneel ***

You preach not to steal but when have you known

The infant’s hunger, when it’s your seed’s own;

Would you then refrain to fall from your perch Though dispensations your s at court And at church

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Oh blessed ones, you who from birth have gained

High moral virtues sans penury’s pain, Promise us heaven if we bear sin’s plough, Whilst you and your kin enjoy the world now ***

But it’s not race nor creed nor caste nor tongue

That divide mankind, dehumanise one;

We are exiled from Eden, forgotten in our pain,

Pariahs in a world where money sole reign ***

Your blessed for we have no stomach to fight Tyrannies that prolong poverty’s night When the belly’s bare no will does invite To seek beyond pangs of hunger’s mad plight ***

Will the meek ever then inherit the earth? Will the rich e’er see beyond their own worth?

Will the world value our pathetic mite? Will evil always triumphs over right?

***

Yet deep within this god forsaken isle We breathe the same air, though foul, with a smile

We taste the same rain that falls from afar Though damned in the gutter, we see the same star