On aesthetics and injustice

On aesthetics and injustice

 

Oh, those broad boulevards,
Edifices, finely dressed,
Financial centres guarded by
their towering shards of steel and glass

 

How impressed I am to see them
How humbled by their presence
How awed by what they represent

 

Behind these walls
merchant adventurers,
bankers
celebrate success
in chandeliered halls

 

I run through city-streets
to catch the gold dripping from their eaves
Drink warm wine at cafes
while admiring domes and pinnacles
Taking my aesthetic leisure

 

But the lustre fades
as I recall that wealth is not created
but appropriated

 

What’s collected here
is brought from somewhere else

 

Our success is someone else’s loss

 

Somewhere, poverty is biting
Injustice thrives
People die and orphans go without
and wonder why

 

When realisation grows
and injustice goes ignored,
frustration turns to anger

 

The bankers and adventurers
are quick to answer

 

We close our borders,
bolt our doors
Spend our wealth on tools of war

 

And, as people die and orphans go without,
we wonder why