Today
In our national television i saw malnourished children staring
At our pallid faces, children with sunken eyes wedged in
Overweight heads, flesh-ridden hands and mouths
Clinging on emaciated breasts.
The reporter says those are children from
The patched, arid lands of the Turkana, vulnerable
Like children from some God-forsaken, war-torn country.
Today
In the national television too, a Trans-zoia farmer retorts in desperation:
"Where's the government's grain silos when our grains are rotting for
Lack of market and store houses?"
An Olkalau farmer fumes with founded fury:
"We're pouring pail of milk for our already overfed dogs
And the local milk factory has taken to its full capacity!
Who'd compensate us against these collosal losses?"
Today
In one palatial home in Runda or Muthaiga where
The priveleged few pore over plasma screens, a man's child would ask,
Mouth stuffed with meat-balls: "Papa is that child a Kenyan?Is Turkana in Kenya?"
His little mind unregistering how a fellow child could be so deprived.
Today
In my middle-class appartment at eastlands, while sipping minute maid,
Pondering over my mortgage service, i too could be reawakened
By these contrasting images of my country and wonder how
Man's priorities could be trully misplaced and wanting.
Yet
This's our land of glorious sunshine and revitalizing rain
But the middle class and the rich, competing to win top prize,
They would persist their right to life, along with the myriads of
Economic disorders in our nation that stand out like blisters.
An astonishingly truthful
An astonishingly truthful account of your country has been created by you in this poem. As you so markedly point out there is never any excuse for such extreme poverty to exist, especialy when products are being wasted to suit a monetary market and economies. These essentials may as well be distributed to the poor rather than go to waste: as they are in my country and many other countries around the world. Your poem made me think well about these issues, your government should do something about the starving people's plight, even susidising food prices in order to help the poor from starving as they do e.g. in India and many other countries around the world. By saving your people this way, an economy can exist because and for the people, rather than atrocious scenes of starvation and waste and no economy. As I said your poem made me think, a good Government is a humanitarian one and looks after the well being of their own people.
http://www.postpoems.org/authours/a.griffiths57
Thank a.griffiths for your
Thank a.griffiths for your honest comments. if only people and the state can take advantage of what they have, this world could have been quite accommodating to everyone, and we would have enjoyed a vibrant economy- everyone of us.
milton
Pure, powerful, and
Pure, powerful, and hopeful.
Blessings to you and to our lands.