Fashion
See those resplendent creatures, as they glide
O'er scarlet carpet, between footmen tall,
From sumptuous carriage to effulgent hall -
A dazzling vision in their pomp and pride!
See that choice supper - needless - cast aside -
Though worth a thousand fortunes, counting all,
To them for whom no crumb of it will fall -
The starved and homeless in the street outside.
Some day the little great god will decree
That overmuch connotes the underbred,
That pampered body means an empty head,
And wealth displayed the last vulgarity.
When selfish greed becomes a social sin
The world's regeneration may begin.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Magic Carpet Ride
Take me for a magic carpet ride.
Let that magic carpet glide
slowly so I can see
all the places where misery
lives every day.
Let it glide over Iraq
so I can see why our boys can't come back
to their babies and wives
and try best they can to get on with their lives.
Let it glide over the Gaza strip
where two nations are joined at the hip
and don't even know it.
I can see the misery from where I sit.
Let it glide over the oil fields
where they pump the lifeblood that the earth yields.
Black gold all for a price
in a bloody war of sacrifice.
Let it glide over the African land
to help me try and understand
why all of its beauty and natural resource
is raped and pillaged with no remorse.
Let it glide over China's great wall
separating its people from the rest of us all,
where liberties are abused on every day,
where no one's allowed to have a say.
Let me glide over the Vatican
where so much praise is given one man.
Gold is there wherever I gaze.
Poverty forgotten, but not the praise.
Let me glide over the streets of our cities
where the smog is thick and makes you wheeze.
The homeless and beggars begging for change
in a land of freedom. I find that strange.
Take me back to my own little home
from wherever my carpet ride did roam.
I've seen too much misery for one long day.
It's time for me to lie down and pray.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Counting On You
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two
One of these days Ill be back with you
Counting the ways that I love you
Through and through
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
Tentatively you put up the signs
Letting me know you are mine
And Im counting on you
To be here through it all
Im counting on you
To catch me if I fall
Whatever you do, remember
Im always counting on you
Flight six, eight, one, gate forty-two
At seven fifteen Ill feel ten feet tall
Knowing you care after all
And Im counting on you
To be here through it all
Im counting on you
To catch me if I fall
Whatever you do, remember
Im always counting on you
Counting on you
To be here through it all
Counting on you
To catch me if I fall
Remember Im always
Counting on you
song performed by by Monkees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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London
The gorgeous stream of England's wealth goes by,
Mixed with the mud and refuse, as of old —
The hungry, homeless, naked, sick and cold;
Want mocked by waste and greedy luxury.
There, in their downy carriage- cushions, lie
Proud women whose fair bodies have been sold
And bought for coronet or merchant gold —
For whose base splendours envious maidens sigh.
Some day the social ban will fall on them —
On wanton rich who taunt their starving kin;
Some day the social judgment will condemn
These “wedded harlots” in their shame and sin.
A juster world shall separate them then
From all pure women and all honoured men.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Hello Big Man
(carly simon/peter wood)
He started a company
When he was a young man
Handsome, and like a reed so tall
With a face like an old photograph
She would fall for him
Fall for him
She would fall
She wore her mothers cocktail dress
With saddle shoes
She was pretty and she was small
She worked the switchboard
Down the hall from him
Down the hall
Chorus:
He said: hello little woman?
She said: hello big man?
And that was how the wooing
And the winning began
He said: hello little woman?
She said: hello big man?
Of course new york in those days
Was carriage rides and matinees
He took her to a ball
At the waldorf astoria
He would fall for her
Fall for her, he would fall
Chorus
You could hear them laugh
As they danced in their room
And the shadows on the avenue
Rose into a jealous moon
Which swung low in the dawn like
To see what was going on with those two
You keep on expecting
Something to go wrong
And nothing does
They still live in the house
Where we were born
Pictures of us kids
Hanging up all over the walls
And some say he built his empire
For wealth and toil
But, if you ask him why
Hell say he did it all for her
All for her
All for her
Chorus
song performed by by Carly Simon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies
872
As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies
As the Vulture teased
Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys
As the Tiger eased
By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet
Till he meet a Man
Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues
And partakes—his Tongue
Cooled by the Morsel for a moment
Grows a fiercer thing
Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa
A Nutrition mean
I, of a finer Famine
Deem my Supper dry
For but a Berry of Domingo
And a Torrid Eye.
poem by Emily Dickinson
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Pampered vanity is a better thing perhaps than starved pride.
quote by Joanna Baillie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Greed be the Ruler?
Do we really want our greed to be the ruler of our life
when all we get for our effort is agony and strife?
We keep chasing after dollars each and every day
but if it's really worth the time is very hard to say.
The need for ever bigger things has taken a firm hold
but treasures in our heart are worth far more than gold
instead we stress and run around like rats within a cage
we work ourselves into the ground and end up in a rage.
We live with tunnel vision having just one goal in mind
to use our hard earned dollars and buy all we can find.
With a big promotion and more money greed will grow
we want more material wealth that we can put on show.
This is the world we live in if we shut our spirit out
we'll never cherish what we have of that there is no doubt
but if we put aside our greed to see how we are blessed
we'll recognise that we have always had the very best.
poem by Monica Partridge
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In the Country
This life is sweetest; in this wood
I hear no children cry for food;
I see no woman, white with care;
No man, with muscled wasting here.
No doubt it is a selfish thing
To fly from human suffering;
No doubt he is a selfish man,
Who shuns poor creatures, sad and wan.
But 'tis a wretched life to face
Hunger in almost every place;
Cursed with a hand that's empty, when
The heart is full to help all men.
Can I admire the statue great,
When living men starve at its feet!
Can I admire the park's green tree,
A roof for homeless misery!
poem by William Henry Davies
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There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.
quote by Emma Goldman
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Greed is Good
“Greed is good! ” they say
Some say “Greed is great! ”
Will they say that when the masses
Are bashing down their gate?
Will they still pray to their god ‘Greed’
When they find that it’s too late?
All the starving children
They don’t think greed is good
They would rather have each day
A sufficiency of food
All the freezing homeless
How great is greed to those?
A bit of tin to shelter in
Would please them (I suppose)
What good is greed to anyone
When it is served with hate?
I’d rather have a shred of humanity
Sitting on my plate
poem by Neil Milliner
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We Live In A Material World
We live in a material World though suppose it was always that way
And money does speak every language a wiser one than I did say
Still decency once stood for something though those values now in decay
And nowadays far more greed and corruption materialism is with us to stay.
Much wants more is alive and thriving with millions some are not satisfied
The Joneses next door have a new car and that put a dent in their pride
They must buy one bigger and better they must be the tops in the street
For greed and pride we sacrifice our values as for social status we compete.
I sort of admire the Grim Reaper although he is one that I fear
Since he cannot be bought with money he does have values 'twould appear
And he treats everybody as equal since he does not differentiate
Yet him we do not wish to know of and him we will not celebrate.
We live in a material World where to be poor in it's own way is a crime
Yet rich and poor have one thing in common they all lose out to old father time
Good values were once seen as important but to nothing now such things amount
Your worth is now valued in money and the size of your bank account
poem by Francis Duggan
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Shine
Just a grain of sand on a thousand beaches
Just like dust in the wind
Try to understand why I go to pieces
Dont know where to begin
Got a smokin hand, nobody knows plan
But I can feel it, its gonna overload
Its a greed machine, it means everything
Im gonna have to get it out of my head
Got a screaming hand, shadows are all my friends
Cause they conceal me when I overload
Its a greed machine, it means everything to me
I cant conceal it when it overloads
I still shine
Got a smokin hand, no one can understand
But I can feel its gonna overload
Its a greed machine, it means everything to me
I cant conceal it when it overloads
song performed by by Ugly Kid Joe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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With Many With Money
With many with money it is much wants more
I'm sure that's a saying you've often heard before
And many with enough are not satisfied
That greed is addictive cannot be denied
That the gap between the haves and the have nots is widening does seem sad to say
And millions of people are hungry and homeless in the World of today
And for every millionaire hundreds in poverty
Lack of money is the source of inequality
Not all very wealthy people suffer of financial greed
Of wealthy philanthropists we so often do read
With the poor of the World some of their wealth they do share
So great is the kind and generous billionaire
The words much wants more to them does not apply
And credit of them we should never deny.
poem by Francis Duggan
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None More Selfish Than I
Some humans are such selfish creatures and none more selfish than I
The World revolves around me and praise of self I do enjoy
Some call it self survival or call it what you may
And meanwhile people dying of hunger every day.
I've never known what it feels like to be hungry or known of hunger pain
Yet of my poor existence I often do complain
So many poor and oppressed people would envy one like me
It surely can be a relative thing when one talks of poverty.
I meet so many selfish people who for themselves only care
Of the sufferings of others they don't even seem to care
As well as self centred they are ignorant and without thinking they say
That poverty is self inflicted in the World of today.
I may be a selfish bugger but in that I'm not alone
And I am one not without sin so I can't cast the stone
I feel that the World revolves around me how selfish can one be
And only the best of people are blessed with the gift of empathy.
poem by Francis Duggan
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In Every City, Town And Village
In every City, Town and Village the haves and have nots reside
But even the poorest of the poor have got their sense of pride
And it must be soul destroying for them to have to beg to stay alive
But pride has to take second place to the will to survive.
The wealthy growing wealthier and the poor growing poorer in the great social divide
And sad to say the gap between the haves and the have nots has never been so wide
Millions are dying of hunger and in camps for the homeless and Stateless overseas
At least thirty million people that's a lot of refugees.
Poverty is a relative thing some have been known to say
And the poor one in a prosperous Nation would be seen as wealthy in a poor Nation far away
But to live short of money anywhere is not a pleasant thing
'Tis seldom of the homeless soul that the balladeer does sing.
In every City, Town and Village there is inequality
And even in the wealthiest of Nations there is want and poverty
And though everybody in the World cannot be a millionaire
The unequal distribution of wealth seems so very unfair.
poem by Francis Duggan
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That's Life One Must Suppose
At the bottom of the social rank and low in self esteem
That's where the haves want to keep the have nots or that's how it does seem
For every new member of the millionaires club there is more poverty
And that people of malnutrition die does not make sense to me,
When many have far more than enough but not enough to satisfy their greed
For them 'twould seem that much wants more that does seem sad indeed
Though some quite wealthy people some of their profits share
Amongst the struggling have nots of the bigger World out there
The social gap keeps widening getting bigger every day
And the poor are getting poorer or so 'twould seem that way
Many hungry and homeless and low in social rank
For the poverty of millions we do have greed to thank
Some have to go for months on end without a change of clothes
And the poor keep getting poorer that's life one must suppose.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I stand tall
I stand tall.
Time to take off.
Ready set go.
Oh don't you know?
This is my show.
Mine, mine, mine from the depths of the greed from the supposed truly divine.
Corruption is my conquest.
But I still stand tall.
Pride comes before my fall.
I'm sorry to say i want it all.
Everything I can grab or nab.
Ambition is its name.
It can be a very dirty game.
Get ahead over, under any way through even if it means I have to hurt you.
Human nature at its best and worse.
An objective that will not change.
Point your finger and blame. It's always someone Else's fault never your own.
A repetitious scapegoat with no name.
No claim.
Just another little dirty stain on society.
So I stand tall.
Cause I'm taking it all.
I will breach the pearly gates.
I will escape the fiery pits.
The suffering must end.
It's not something I plan to defend.
I just want too win.
Gambling is all about knowing when to get in and out without any doubt.
So I stand tall.
I will have it all.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Roll Away The Stone!
do we roll away the stone
again this morning?
if so, what do we find?
the body of Jesus?
our own body?
the bodies of those
we have killed out of greed?
of those we've let die
out of apathy?
or empty grave clothes?
the choice is ours!
resurrection is the choice
that the human heart awaits!
the gospel is compassion,
and compassion,
that which makes us human!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Pride
A stone cast into the sky
Must surely fall down to the earth
No matter how greenish the grass is
It is a rich delicacy to herds
Monkey defies instruction to be cautious
It ends up climbing trees beyond branches
Pride and damnation are borne twins
Accolades based on pride leads to fall
Beauty anchors on pride vanishes
No proud can see God
The rewards of pride are
Shame, dishonour, rejection....
Pride descreates throne
A king with garment of pride
Will end up naked at market square
A prince riding on a horse with countenance
Will be trodden upon on the street
If people are hailing you;
If the world urges you on;
Beware, make youself humble
For no one queue behind the proud
A word is enough.......
poem by Babatunde Aremu
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So Many Poor Souls And Not Many Who Care
So many poor souls and not many who care
Are doing it quite tough in the big World out there
The homeless and hungry teenagers of poverty street
Are searching in rubbish bins for something to eat
The gap is increasing in the social divide
And millions are Stateless and Homeless and hungry World wide
The victims of droughts and wars and disease
In the refugee camps millions of refugees.
The marginalized are doing it quite tough
On poverty street they are sleeping rough
People should not have to go hungry in the World of today
But such is not the case that does seem sad to say
For one wealthy person thousands in poverty
Those who need far more than words of sympathy
People who look old before they reach their life's prime
To be born to poor parents is their only crime.
poem by Francis Duggan
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