Tag Archives: poverty

“True” Art

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The Gleaners, Jean-François Millet
Banksy
Mandy Barker
Banksy
Mandy Barker

“True” Art

Ugliness invades the exquisite hall:
brazen rude truths hung up on the wall.
Training the rich to see the real world—
the truth of the starving so crudely unfurled.

Exquisite lives overlooking the grime
of ghettos and junkyards, pollution and crime.
Riches amassed while refusing to see
how greed contributes to poverty.

Idiosyncrasies. Truth told in chrome.
Sad themes and base metals invade the rich home.
Landscapes with hardships depicted in oil:
rusted-out car frames returning to soil.

Thus crude art invades the beautiful world
with the ugly truth blatantly unfurled.
And though robber barons might greedily yearn for it,
and they might hang it, they sadly don’t learn from it.

 

Prompt words today are chrome, hardship, landscape, brazen, trainer and idiosyncrasies.

The Bread Train

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The Bread Train

When you hop aboard the bread train, there’s no negotiation.
Folks aboard the bread train become a congregation.
It’s a happy wagon. a life-fulfilling ride.
Everything comes easy when you are inside.
Don’t bother about lowlifes who wait along the tracks.
You can’t be responsible for everybody’s backs.

This trip through life is better if you have some dough.
These folks who have an easy ride everywhere they go?
That there may be enough for all is what they do not know.
They want no interference with the status quo.
If folks don’t have what they do, it’s just because they’re lazy.
Those who think the bread train crowd will feed them are just crazy!

Every riff-raff wannabe can’t have what he wants.
If he can’t afford the bread train, let him eat croissants!!

 

And, another kind of bread train…

 

Prompt words today are bread, wagon, negotiation and trip. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/rdp-tuesday-bread/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/30/fowc-with-fandango-wagon/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/your-daily-word-prompt-negotiation-april-30-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/trip/

Sentimental Journey

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IMG_2672

The Smell of Curry

Would that sentiment were only
positive and never lonely––
but all emotions of the world
in sentiment are tightly curled.
Every  memory we cherish
is doubly edged with “live” and “perish.”
In every city, country, land––
bad and good go hand in hand.

The blend of cardamom and lentil
always makes me sentimental.
Odors of turmeric and its ilk,
garam masala and coco milk.
Curry spices being roasted,
degree of peppers being boasted,
chickpeas, carrots, potatoes, rice––
stirring in each thing that’s nice.

What do I think of when I smell
and taste that it is going well?
Bombay and wedding saris thin
sliding down my youthful skin.
Visions of a midnight ride
to cages with young girls inside
sold by their parents and then resold
nightly for a bit of gold.

Traffic, sitar music, fingers
scooping curry––all this lingers.
The beauty of that winsome song
that showed me where the world’s gone wrong.
His action, swift, unthinking, curt
of small coins cast into the dirt
to deflect those who beg and bleat,
surrounding us in every street.

Palaces and then the clash
of children in a world of trash,
the refuse of this giant city
the world they lived in—what a pity.
Back when traveling was new,
experiences were so few
that India changed my life forever.
So, will I forget it?  Never.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/cherish/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/sentimental/