Punishing the poor
Do you feel superior
From your golden throne
Taking all they have from them
Including their dignity
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Tag Archives: poverty
American Dream
American dream
Lies in pieces on the floor
Though not for the rich
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
The Disenfranchised
The disenfranchised
Looking to be powerful
Radicalism
Hopelessness and poverty
Feed this fast spreading cancer
Where does the blame lie
In the laps of governments
Religious fervor
Perhaps in weakness of mind
Our duty–cure the root cause
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
The Sun, Moon and Stars
The sun, moon and stars
Watch wide-eyed in amazement
Foolishness of man
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
Alive and well in our young
Picking up the torch
We hoped these days passed
Only to smoulder again
Into raging fire
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Faded Asphalt Riddled with Glass and Stone
Embed from Getty Images
Faded asphalt riddled with glass and stone
Scorched deep black by disenfranchised frustration.
Called thugs and lawless, anger bubbles over,
But still nothing has changed.
The sixties are alive in well in the twenty-first century.
Civil rights are still just a dream for many
Though we’d like to believe otherwise.
So what! Segregation has been legally abolished,
The back of the bus is no longer reserved,
But what the law cannot abolish is racism.
It cannot regulate the prejudice minds of man,
It cannot extract it from our senses,
Perhaps blindness is the answer,
Plucking of the eyes from the skull.
What else can save this species,
It has been on this spiral for eternity?
Look at our history!
Enslavement, segregation, discrimination,
Poverty, lynchings, so little progress.
Yes, some of these have faded,
Replaced by polite prejudice,
But still nothing has changed.
Perhaps one day,
The ignorant will close their eyes,
Open their hearts
And realize that color is only
…Skin deep.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Pondering Things
Pondering things more now than ever
I’m finding out how little I know.
I don’t understand human nature;
Its incessant need for power,
Its unquenchable greed,
Its innate ability to hate,
Its thirst to subjugate others.
Look no farther than the news;
War is spreading at a rapid pace,
Our young men and women are sent to fight,
For what…our freedom?
Only true if freedom flows from a pump.
Their blood is being exchanged for oil,
Sounds criminal unless you are a capitalist.
Poverty is running rampant,
The rich are getting richer
While the middle-class drowns
And the poor are being mowed under.
Our children are sunk into debt
For the privilege of an education.
Education is not a privilege but a right,
Only a fool would think otherwise…
You laugh…
Well then, a fool I must be!
With no where else to turn
We look toward the government,
Corrupt, divisive, they are of no help.
No! Don’t dare pull the party card,
Your blind faith in either cesspool is deplorable.
Don’t think for a second that they care about us,
Most of us don’t have the money to buy that kind of loyalty.
These behemoths only tolerate us because they have to.
Lobbyists and corporations are their real audience
Purchasing the destruction of our environment,
Sending our jobs overseas,
Corralling wealth for the pleasure of the minority
All for the destruction of the majority.
We…are…expendable!
In the end, what do I know?
I know what this country…this world could be,
It wouldn’t take much,
Just a little love,
A little compassion,
A little humanity,
But then…I am a dreamer
Who just realized…
How little I really know.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Hawk Soars, Doing What It Was Born To Do
Hawk soars, doing what it was born to do.
What does he see, but his next meal…a path to procreation,
Nothing personal, it is a simple means of survival…
Prolongation of the species.
Is not man much the same, feeding on the weaker of the species?
In the end he is nothing more than an animal;
Carnivorous in more than his primal appetite,
Feasting on flesh and blood of the lesser to satisfy its needs…
Perpetuation of his own.
We claim to be of a higher ilk, greater than the common beast,
But we fool ourselves, we are nothing more than a bipedal wildebeest
Living up to Darwin’s own theory…
Survival of the fittest.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Problem…Solution (Tanka)
Problem…solution
Our history makes it clear
The Boston Tea Party
The same kind of oppression
A few hundred years later
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Loftiest of Dreams
Loftiest of dreams cast into the shadows,
What is left to hope for?
Watching what we deem civilization crumble right before my eyes
I lament days gone by.
Overwhelming sadness pervades every waking hour;
I weep, though I weep not for me, but my progeny,
They shall inherit this chaos.
We were to be stewards protecting our world for the future;
We failed…instead we rape and pillage the earth for all that it has
Treading upon its inhabitants for our own profit.
What will be left to pass down, but devastation, war and famine;
The ugliness that we as a species have so ungraciously admitted,
Dwarfing the plagues of Biblical Egypt.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Dom DiFrancesco 