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B 33 Pg 6

The poor are waiting

 

“The poor are waiting,”

that’s what they are taught.

To wait patiently in government institutions, / in hospitals, / at the doll office /

or for justice in the courts.

 

filling up the many institutional corridors

they also wait at home on the phone.

They wait whenever there is a government handout,

for that essential and necessary, hand out bone.

 

And ‘they’ the poor wait ever so patiently,

few dare to speak out of turn,

for this will not get them any where they have

(from hard earned experience) ‘learned.’

 

And their offspring wait there with them,

‘learning that waiting’ is one of life’s ‘standard norms.’

And so when they too grow up, they too will wait patiently

and not kick up a ding or a storm.

 

And so ‘wait’ they must; those underprivileged,

but they themselves must never make others wait.

It is a serious transgression (and against the rules)

for they ‘themselves’ to be late.

 

And while waiting, some dream of ‘riches’

and of being able to demand ‘better conditions.’

But sooner or latter they will have to come down to earth

to their more realistic proper ‘aspirations.’

 

And so the poor ‘wait to survive,’

never knowing (most times) ‘why.’

Why they should wait

it seems to be to simply; ‘to stay alive.’

 

And so even though they very much hate ‘to wait,’

they none the less, ... ‘wait,’

and wait,

and wait and wait.

© Written by Dominic John Gill www.poetry.net.au  dominicj7@poetry.net.au 2001