Only with a heart deceived by lust,
But why at the end of the month does such a man earn more than a woman?
When women lead not just their own lives, but their families as well,
With a humble heart, why do women not get promoted to managers?
A woman – carries the entire world on her shoulder without a sigh of pain,
Such differences were the result of selfishness, arrogance, and wrong preaching,
In 2016 let us crown the women, who have gone through hell and back for our comfort,
And the women who are oppressed, misused, and never acknowledged for simply,
Let each one of them walk off the hurt, the loneliness, and the lack of self esteem
For each of them is, phenomenally, a woman.
James Freel Stevenson, UK
The Power Of The One
All rise and take heed, for a wise man is here
Seek not retribution, don’t feed their fear
Forgive them, love them, they know not what they do
Would you be equal with them, or they with you?
One against many, many with few
Strength is in numbers, think what you do
Almost two trillion dollars between sixty two
Only three hundred in one year for you
Cast your votes wisely as one we unite
This is the help you need for your plight
To create a life, not start a fight.
Have I more than you, or you than me
Inequality is relevant, this you must see
We all have good reason, perhaps not to share
It’s my house or my land, it’s just and it’s fair?
Abundance for all the universe provides
Who shall determine how we divide?
Poverty and misery affect me and you
Blindness and deafness affect sixty two
My need is greater or my brothers is less
Where to begin with this terrible mess?
Spread my message among you
The answer clear and concise.
Use the power of the one
Or we’ll all pay the price!
Douglas R. Stewart, USA
Dance of Fear
South Africa decreed, with fatherly pomp,
Scholarships for girls and women, but only if
Her hymen is intact. But they the count this to be
liberalism, this eternal protection of male rights.
In the land of the free and the home of the brave,
A woman has her equal rights proclaimed to all the
World, except in wages, jobs, and reserved professions,
As long as her religion, pastor, priest, or rabbi permits.
But at least they keep their lives and homes and safety.
Proud men with guns and swords, with hatred in their hearts
And property filed next to sex in their spirits. Some established
serial wives for deceased bombers, with a permanent escape clause.
A vicious dance around the planet, women are beaten, kicked and horribly
Punched, mutilated, and yet, and yet, in alleys, ghettos, and motel
Rooms, in hospitals, mansions, and sometimes barns, babies
Are being born, mothers are in every culture, tribe, worshiped.
With grey insults, dark griefs, black lacerations but we are not like
Them! Those we disdain down in the caliphates, who treat women with
Savagery.
Udaya R. Tennakoon, Sri Lanka
Galileo’s Irony
If the earth human survives is a globe, justice will pronounce
But the globe and the justice are contrast to the reality
If the mind well-dressed is in heart, then the humanity will beam
But the mind and the humanity are contrast to the reality
If the God is an absolute metaphor, it will be the world spirit
But the metaphor and spirit are contrast to the reality
If the equality is a mirror of human principle, difference could be respected
But the equality and the difference are contrast to the reality
If the vision of the Galileo’s eye, enlarges the truth and the history
But the science and the truth are blindfolded to the reality
If the modernity invents more and more to the new world’s balcony
But the meaning of the progress is less and less to the reality
If widening gap is a cycle, wealth and poverty will encounter a day
But the poverty in a vicious cycle is contrast to the riches of the reality
If the struggle is the sword of proletariats, bourgeoisie will be the contrary
But the praxis and the philosophy are contrast to the politics of the reality
If evolution finds an answer, glaciers on poles will make sinking ship of hopes
But the revolution for the inequity is aside of ignorance for the necessity
If these dichotomies end transforming, transcendence will be nature’s diversity
But extend of greediness and suffering from hunger are matchless to the unity
If the binary oppositions sit on the unbalance, it will be a rolling stone
But the world makes thousands of speeches on it to the airy organs
If the cry and sigh die in hunger, while withering the soul and the heart
But the rhythm for a song of real change dances as a guilty guest
Savita Tyagi, USA
The Wolf is there to devour It All..
Little Red Riding Hood is hopping through the forest!
Doesn't know the big bad wolf, hiding in Grand ma's closet.
She has no place to hide with her basket full of ideology.
Democracy and Liberty, equal rights and opportunity,
For justice, peace, education, wealth and basic amenities,
O! My angel! Don't you see! The wolf is there to devour it all!
This wolf has many faces with sharp and dangerous claws.
Mega corporations and their greedy financial monopoly,
Arrogant governments with terrifying military supremacy,
Supporting unfair tax policies, low wages, and inequality,
World demagogues pretending to look after little people,
Oh! My angel! How would you face these scavenger of wealth?
The savage wolf has been in grandma's coat far too long.
It has multiple names and hide outs to move around.
It's most cruel face Slavery and Apartheid is abolished,
Cast system much abhorred and despised is outlawed.
Now pride and dignity in human labor must be reinstalled.
A living wage for a honest day's work is time's fair demand.
Yet wealth is being hoarded by too few powerful czars.
Rest are being deprived, their economic growth is barred.
Millions are made poor and destitute in an economic bust,
Stricken by manmade disaster toiling for mere bread crumbs
Oh! My angel! How would you survive this betrayal of trust?
Look out! Your precious basket is being robbed by their lust.
Jorge Valles Anguiano, México
The Actual World
As I see people walking,
looking elegant,
I see others asking for money.
And I ask myself,
"What's better? Give them money?
Or give them a job? Or at least,
try to discover people with a talent
and give them a job, an opportunity".
I remember a day when I was a kid
and I got lost. I saw someone sat on the floor, and
I sat with him, at some distance, as I didn't know him.
Then, I could see how people
looked at him like if he were a monster,
garbage, an accident.
I felt sad about that person,
so I got close to hi
m
and gave him what little money I had.
He first stared at me, then told me,
"You'll need this more than me,
and I'll make sure that you don't end like me".
After that my mom, scared, found me and
took me home, I told her what happened, and I
assured her that I'll forever remember his words.
Hans Van Rostenberghe, Belgium
Flowers in the desert of greed
A small flower in the desert of greed
Sheds some fragrance, sheds a seed.
Two little flowers in the desert of need
Each a bit of fragrance, each gives a seed
Four small flowers growing among weed
Fragrance increases, each produces a seed
Flowers, eight and sixteen and then thirty two
Flourishing fragrance and more seeds too.
Sixty four, two fifty six, more than a thousand soon
no more place for weed, crumbling greed and needs,
A million flowers each shedding fragrance and seeds
The desert of greed and need and weed recedes
Small acts of kindness, the fragrance will spread
Greed and stress vanishing; peace of mind instead
Awareness growing, weed by weed reaches death
Equality an illusion; for inequality no solution
as long as we wait for big shots' contribution
What we need now is a kindness revolution
It won't be the crooks, the ones who now lead the greed
It won't be the sand in the desert that alleviates the need
Small acts of kindness are fragrance and seed
A billion flowers of kindness, it's easy to see.
A true revolution on its way, as big as can be.
It depends not on presidents, but on you and on me.
Mai Venn, Ireland
The ladder of life
Born into poverty – the bottom rung,
Deprived from a childhood education,
However, life is a far better tutor,
Learning from parents and siblings
With its advantages and disadvantages
The old ways were good but unrealistic.
Adolescent and poverty, the next rung,
Slave labour for tuppence a day,
Beneath all weathers and situations
Living under deplorable rule,
Governments that crack the whip
To keep the unfortunate folks down.
Approaching adulthood, meeting more rungs,
Starting a family with no prospects,
Drudgery repeats itself once more –
Look on at the suffering of the poor,
Then look over at the rich prospering –
Where is the equality in that?
Up or down the ladder, on we go.
Fairness is an illusion for some,
Freedom is a dream for others.
Justice is never straightforward,
Equality is something we’ll never have –
Not from the beginning nor to the end of time.
So the ladder of life can it be climbed or not?
The rich get richer while the poor take the fall.
The world continues to spin around and around.
Does anything change for the downtrodden and poor?
Who, in this moment in time, can make those decisions?
Will there always be an equality division?
Michael Walker, New Zealand
Outside The ASB Tennis Arena
Before the evening semifinals in January, 2014,
when the star of Venus Williams sparkled brightly,
I walked out of the ASB Arena to the Domain nearby.
I sat on a park bench, to dine and drink cordial.
I was alone in the twilight, gazing at the skyline:
office buildings with teal windows that I like;
the eternal flow of cars down the motorway
a contrast to the calm harbor in the distance.
I felt that inner peace which is like nirvana;
in a twilight zone out of time and space.
A man walked up to put some papers in the bin
and we exchanged a cordial strangers' greeting,
before he said: "I'm in the tent over there".
I thought of the blue-and-white tent covers
where spectators sip champagne court side.
However, he pointed out his own blue tent
under the broad branches of an oak tree:
he smiled knowingly, went back to his dwelling,
inside for the night and outside of my life.
I had glimpsed loneliness and poverty,
even dignity, as he indeed lived there.
The affable stranger stayed in my mind much
longer than the semi-final under floodlights.
Aaron Njoroge Wambu, Kenya
Pangani Round About
"Nisaidie kumi nikule sapa"
I found a tinge of humor in that statement
After the street kid picked the coin from my arm and said "asanti"
They know an evening meal is called supper, huh?
Maybe it’s humorous
Or maybe I’m guilty of looking down upon them
Like many of us busy nobles are
Am I another man in the melting pot?
Leaning my head against the old matatu window in the evening
Traffic jam around Pangani roundabout
I felt a sense of triumph as I gave the young street boy a coin
As he thanked me I wore that half a smile that said "don’t mention it"
And a moment of reflection hit me, "Or that even isn’t enough?"
I was broken yet I’d afford to give; how blessed I was!
But then; a million questions always pop up in such bittersweet moments
Who shall be next to give generously?
Shall he have himself a healthy meal?
How many in number are there of his kind?
Will he be lucky enough to be a great man?
Why did he have to be here in the first place?
Are we masters of our fate or we’re mere twigs swaying with the winds?
A million and a several more rhetoric questions.. till the end,
If such a thing as the end exists at all
And,
How many of us are ‘rich’ enough to give?
__________
Author's note:
Nisaidie kumi nikule sapa: "bless me with 10 shillings for my supper"
Asanti: thanks
Matatu: city bus
Niken Kusuma Wardani, Indonesia
Bridge towards Equality
Children in the burning sun
Run races in the street.
They offer their songs
In return for pennies.
Inside the fancy cars,
Big people sit with ease
While little waving hands
Reach into their windows.
These are the big people
Who describe poverty
In expensive symposiums
To gain public sympathy.
Yet, the theory and facts
Never mingle into acts.
The rich and poor still
Live apart in two worlds.
Our barriers must break,
Our hearts must grow,
So we can learn empathy.
It’s the bridge to equality.
Mithilesh Kumar Yadav, India
Existence of Inequality
With my tears mixing into my sweat and to soil, how delicious food in those villas they have ,
And my daughter denies to have those cookies, knowing his father will not be able to afford,
But in that respect I work hard to earn, those billionaires from us have lot to learn,
Oh it rarely matters to my soul, but my son asks after hectares of productions why so less we e
arn.
In those Air conditioned gyms, calories they burn.. And we strive to get some calories near furnaces
With every night we do extra shifts, as they sip those red wines in their roaring villas,
And my beloved wife yet not getting enough even to cook for our child and their grands,
Oh it really won’t matter to my soul, but speechless
I stand when my son asks why we can’t afford though we can make those brands.
Why we can’t ride the luxury cars U drive dad, my daughter asks,
Many a days and nights I am out for my master’s tasks,
I am happy that my master is confidence of my driving for his wife, children and delegates sometime,
But though she looks satisfying in that 3yrs old gown
I know my love beliefs I will get her new this time.
We don’t aspect to be seen as underprivileged, we do have privilege of shaping todays and tomorrows,
May be our families are not well to do today, but we do have dreams for tomorrows.
Oh it really won’t hurt our soul, we may never accept a thought of equality,
But if there is freedom, there is humanity, there is law..
Why there is existence of this Inequality?
~*~
Authors' biographies
Sayeed Abubakar, Bangladesh
— Born in 1972, I live in Jessore. I have a BA Honours in English and MA in English, and I’m working as Assistant Professor in English at Sirajganj Government College, Sirajganj (Bangladesh). I have won many Literary Awards and have published 12 books: two of them of Prose, ten of Poetry [the latest being "Tumi Balo Tumi Bristi Valobaso" (You Say You Love Rain), and "Shrestha Kabita" (Selected Poems), both in 2015].
~*~
Alexandro Acevedo Johns, Chile
— My name is Alexandro Acevedo Johns, but I sign my writing with my maternal surname (Johns). I am Chilean, born on November 2, 1947. I'm a lawyer and live in Santiago, the capital of Chile, with my wife Marcela. In my youth I was devoted to poetry, as many of my generation. Now, since I retired from the legal profession, I've regained my freedom to write. It is said that writing is a very demanding activity and endanger the spirit if you're not an optimist. But, after the years, I feel that writing helps me to stay alive and connected emotionally with the world we live in
~*~
Ellias Aghili Dehnavi, Iran
— I was born in 1996 in Iran, and I'm currently living with my family in Esfahan, the cultural capital of Iran. I'm studying English literature at the University of Esfahan (B.A student). My favorite fields of study are poetry and English literature. I wrote my first poem, a limerick, when I was twelve years old, and compiled my first Poetry collection, on peace as a topic, when I was 15. One year later, this poetry collection got a recognition from the faculty of foreign languages (University of Isfahan/Esfahan), and also hit an important festival in Iran, called "Khawrazmi". Since then, I've published some other poetry books, also with friends -members of the M.O.P international group, of which I'm currently the second secretary. Since we are all seeking for a better world, where peace and friendships are basic values, it's a honor to be part of this project 'Poets against Inequality'.