Beware. I shouldn’t
write a poem now. And this isn’t
quite poem.
It took Covid 19 to convince me that the USA
MY COUNTRY! has dangerous inadequacies
and this is not an accident. The truth is now laid bare for
all to see.
Promises are mere rhetoric to keep capitalist profits in place. There’s a word I rarely use: Capitalism.
It sounds like bullets. It sounds like disloyalty.
It sounds like bullets. It sounds like disloyalty.
We underclasses are dazed, and many of us are crawling
on our knees in the fog.
The rhetoric which fuels capitalism put us there.
Capitalism need underclasses, and if it can’t get it through slavery,
The rhetoric which fuels capitalism put us there.
Capitalism need underclasses, and if it can’t get it through slavery,
it will get it anyway it can.
Should I say capitalism-it?
No it’s capitalism-they, because people are
doing this to people—though the profiteers are barely
recognizable as human.
Where are human rights?
Where do humans get the value of their labor?
When do we get a break?
Only 2 of our Bill of Rights are still actually functioning:
Amendment 1 of free speech and Amendment 2 of the right to bear arms.
Of course, the empty structures of democracy still take up
the debates
of what we’re entitled to.
Our representatives play into the hands of the profiteers.
The longer it takes to make decisions
and to remember that people are the reason for everything,
and to remember that people are the reason for everything,
the more those who profit function in the shadows.
Covid 19 plays right into
capitalism’s hands.
Debunk everything that’s for “the people”: health care and medicine,
Debunk everything that’s for “the people”: health care and medicine,
living wages and safety, women’s rights and childcare, anti-racist
legislation,
equality of every party, water to drink, and homes to live in.
equality of every party, water to drink, and homes to live in.
My eyes are opened. People are dying due to rhetoric rather than supplies, promises instead of action,
gambling instead of caring.
And I am sadder than I am angry.
Something is wrong with
how capitalism, I don’t know what to do. Do you? Is anger more blind than
love? Maybe love was never blind,
that myth was another deflection from the truth, the things
we should be angry about.
Because believe me, I want to get to the love.
Because believe me, I want to get to the love.
Gathering like this may get to the love. Thanks for listening.
I shouldn’t write a poem now. But this is not quite a poem. Is it.
Day 3 of International Poetry month
My blog poems are rough drafts.
Please respect my copyright.
If you quote, credit this page.
© 2020 Susan L. Chast
They thought some of us were crazy radicals when we started talking about this stuff. Mind you, I did not - ever - see a pandemic coming in my lifetime. The vulnerable state of the 99% has never been made more clear, nor the uncaring heartlessness of the corporate and political profiteers more disgusting. I am glad you wrote this, and sad that it needs to be written and lived. What I wonder is what lies on the other side of this? what will we have learned? who will we vote for? how can we insist on the changes we need? This pandemic tops off the four worst years I have ever witnessed in USA history, and that's saying something from someone who lived through the civil rights movement, the womens' movement, the Viet Nam war protests and all the assassinations.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism should be "they" not "it" - how I love that usage and the truth of your whole poem. Climate change is the 'gift' of capitalism and the push for needless growth by exploitation and ruin. But after this passes(whenever that is), we will only see the push for more profits and recovery of losses - I doubt we as people and nations would have learnt anything. In fact, this will become the excuse to not pursue any corrective action.
ReplyDelete