The Disinherited

 

A wound is festering in arteries

of long-neglected bodies of the blind

and feeble: sons of Plutus came to seize

the bounty coveted by humankind.

 

The most deserving touch it not, but breathe

the deadly poison of the gods. Their roads

are scarred with beggars, urchins, men who seethe

with indigence, whose discontent explodes

in scenes of bullet-ridden walls that share

the streets with foulish waves of hopelessness.

 

With swollen bellies, children unaware

of life beyond a mother’s numbing stress

are silent, bodies ravaged, spirits shorn

by plagues that other worlds no longer mourn.