Poetry Against Poverty’s blog

Whales for the Wealthy

It's been really amazing staying in a 18 million dollar home here in Maui on Makena beach, (and also having friends that like to spoil you at their expense) but now there's no housing left for the middle and low income classes in Hawaii. A one bedroom on the beach is 1.5 mils, a two bedroom condo $379,000 plus association fees. Sugar plantations and pineapple lost out to international competition. Was it meant to be, that such beauty should be reserved for only the wealthy? 

Totems Lost

An orange ball sun sets
as a green streak explodes.
Lava rock, palm leaves, and breeding whales
crest, then submerge                                                                                                   

Makena Beach, Maui

into subconscious levels. Negro
clear crystal waters, energy
dispersed, chilled chi waivers.

Terra homo sapien bellies
lay supline on wood floating, earth
sealed by lava fires, chilled with
trade winds returning. Rivers ran
red as man prevailed over Gods
and nature. Sharks now swimming
backwards, humans rise into darkened
skies, green only a mirage,
a pretense, omens forgotten
in totems lost.

Spiritual Shortcomings, Historically Speaking

The first deadly disgusting behavior
Pontified in the fifth century
by Pope Gregory the Great
was predictably punishable in hell
by being broken upon the wheel.
Pride goeth before

Lust, the second deadly sin
in descending order of seriousness,
of the seven offenses against love itself.
Avarice guaranteed the sinner perpetual
dunking in freezing water, while Anger
would cause one to be dismantled alive.

Suffering from Sadness (or Slothfulness)
would find an eternal bed of snakes. Avarice
(or Greed) victims were showered
with cauldrons of boiling oil. The Gluttonous
were fed rats, toads and hissing snakes. While
the lustful amongst us were merely smothered
in everlasting fire and brimstone.

Salvation, by way of the seven contrary virtues
delivered souls to heaven above.
These counteractions were guaranteed by
Humility against Pride
Chastity against Lust
Kindness against Envy
Abstinence against Gluttony
Patience against Anger
Liberality against Greed
Diligence against Sloth

Worthiness of redemption could also be purloined by a designated
tithe to the local medieval priest. “Good Works” as well, entered
into the confessional equation for eternal forgiveness:
Feed the hungry
Give drink to the thirsty
Give shelter to strangers
Clothe the naked
Visit the sick
Minister to prisoners
Or bury the dead.

Authors Note: Regardless of these noble altruistic behaviors, (which usually occur late in life) , I would hope eternal rewards exclude the unrepentative, immoral, shiftless, self-gratifying, good-for-nothing, arrogant shits, that continue to profit in the commercialization and packaging of death by sin.

Cheryl Lynn Moyer

New Year's Resolution 2008 -  I must work on my anger management issues.

Black Belt Blues                                                                   

Womans.home

One day Rosa Parks was just too tired
of accepting that's how things are.
Martin Luther King had a prophetic vision
he wouldn't live to see the mountaintop.

Sweltering heat, poverty, racism and despair
still claim all the breathing space
between the catfish ponds and the cottonfields.
 
The blind, the crippled, the poor, and the elderly
bundle up in layers hugging their own warmth
to sleep at night, staring at  falling stars
through their cracked and rusty sky.

Children nibble a mouldy potato.

Abandoned cars, corpulent vultures
loveless dogs walking nowhere
claim these back rural dusty roads.
Raw sewage pours into the open grass.
The sun bakes it all hard and crusty.

You can clean motel rooms for a dollar each.
Walk four miles to wash a white woman's clothes.
Beg a ride to the grocery store.

Mothers sing their Baptist prayers.
For your children's sake you stay alive.
 
The young people have escaped
rewarded with real jobs, real pay, real benefits
In the cities and way up north.
Their mothers used a switch with loving hands
to help them find their blackbird wings.
 
But once they've tasted
respect, human dignity, a life worth living,
they can't go home again.
They can't sleep there.
There's no peace in their souls,
only fear, anger, defiance
and the god damned bloody tears.

Cheryl Lynn Moyer

(Published in Down In the Dirt Magazine - 2006)

Milk of Life

A pure white Persian cat had just carefully
shook each of her kittens throats
until they were asleep.

She had no milk to feed them.

She laid them in a row in the sun's
last rays to keep them warm.
Their eyes dimmed into the night.

Now as I stare into empty cupboards
and the bottomless grief on mothers'
faces, I wonder

how many infant souls
have been silently laid to rest
gently beneath the daffodils?

Cheryl Lynn Moyer

----------------------------This is the reply: -----------------------
Hi Cheryl Moyer: Here it is and you do have my permission to post it on your site.

How could I have known poverty''s aroma, its social distaste? I was a child young and growing my mind clear and pure loving all mankind, we were the same. Why tell me otherwise? I grew above the trees flying like an eagle free and legally protected I loved and loved freely uncomplicated virginal to the world around me. But poachers blinded me their guns fired into my back I never came back never flew again I was poor, how poor you ask? poor enough to walk. So walk I did into a mist of discontent and storm youthful immaturity mind not quite developed wings growing into instruments of self doubt and devastation. Such is youth and social stigma dogma of the rich strengthening my courage my mantra became my own. I am poor, poor enough to grow wings.

It could have been a lesson right out of a class on satire.
Gross exaggerations of characteristics in order to illustrate a point.
A new lens with which to view societal problems.
The only problem was that over Spring Break
the story was real.
Once upon a time there was a city called New Orleans…
a true story of unfortunate events.
Our paths crossed, and now neither of us will be the same.

Satire.  Life.  Lessons.
This time the situation was real.
The characters were real.
Mrs. Wade.  Mr. Jones, Vera, Donald.
If the story had been written by Pope,
it would have masterfully satirized the country’s
racial tensions and denial of poverty by using a fairy tale
set in the little town of New Orleans.
If only the story had been written by Pope.

Katrina wove a different tale.
New Orleans nearly died a year and a half ago
after suffering from an abusive hurricane and then
nearly overdosing on water.
The rehabilitation process has been a slow one.
White people have the money to rehab.
To rebuild their broken homes,
and pick up the pieces of their broken lives.
That’s nice for them.

No really, it’s nice.  Someone has to start rebuilding
and it sure as hell isn’t going to be people from the lower classes.
They don’t even have enough money to get back to the city
let alone gut their house and start over.

Think that New Orleans is just a bunch of bayou
stuck beneath sea level next to a river.
Think again.

New Orleans is filled with mountains.
Mountains that people face when trying to rebuild their lives.
Government, society, poverty, race.
Just like Everest.

And these people won’t ever rest.
Not until their lives are restored.
They say that Katrina added 10 years to everyone’s life.
Some people don’t have 10 years.
Didn’t have 10 years.
The hurricane didn’t kill them when it hit,
but the hurricane killed them.

How does it feel to rely on the generosity of volunteers to rebuild a city?
To humble oneself to ask for help in one moment, many moments of need.
I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Many people can’t.
It’s far easier just close that chapter of life and start a fresh page elsewhere.

Life.  Lessons.  Stories.
For me it was like Vesuvius had erupted again.
Causing devastation, and preserving it beneath
layers of ash.  Only there was no ash.
The city was preserved beneath a layer of poverty.
The archeologists: the volunteers piling out
of the long white vans only to discover that
A house that looks normal from the outside is dying on the inside.
The inside of these houses are perfectly preserved.
and why?
Because there is no money.
Because rebuilding is slow.

A watered down version of a once vibrant culture.

An election is coming up.
In just a short period of time television will be filled with political ads.
Millions upon millions of dollars spent, and for what?
To ruin the reputation, the life of another human being.
Katrina ruined lives for free.

Wouldn’t it be great if those millions of dollars
were spent in a more constructive way.
Not constructing a reputation, or a political machine.
But to rebuild a home.  Mr. Jones’ home.  Mrs. Wade’s home.