These Others

The roots show through the dying earth
that you were once born
Yet still remain dead
and these empty tombs
These children turned
into industries for profit
become lies
Told to the queues and queues
of people waiting for bread

these bulldozed streets
These light poles
These traffic lights
and wives
These sanitized kitchens
These forests of metal
these cairns of brick
growing ancient
These new ones,
these shiny ones
These shuttered windows dont lie

These frontiers
that are kept in chains live on
in distant tongues yet unspoken
by suburban kings
and women,
Loved and beaten
children dying at the nipple
suckle currency from
suicidal traders and bombs
that till the soil

You cant write poems
about suffering
when you're numb
Anaesthetc becomes
as compulsory
as violence and revenge
in these nicely paved
and manicured streets
These roads
littered with bottles
these gutters washing
away boredom and disdain
from the eyes of houses
and the mouths of teenage drunks
These concrete tongues
waiting patiently for their meds

These nations
these armies
These foot soldiers
of the economy
These generals
Building skyscrapers out of bones
These kindly nurses
monitoring the fragile veins
of the stupeified
For slaughter
These naked prophets
with their heavy sighs
Are not like these others