Cabantian....
i wonder if poverty is still worth writing
that little child once in cabantian in 1979
eating breakfast: a glass of water,
chunk of brown sugar, a cup of rice
that was all that i saw
and i wrote poem about poverty
and poured my heart out,
i went back to the same place last year
the shanties are gone
perhaps the child has become another
work force in the banana plantation
or perhaps he had gone somewhere to the big city
serving as bell boy at the hotel
or waiter in a pizza house
or perhaps before that happened
he could be one of those salvaged victims
in the crusade against domestic rebellion
one of the unsolved disappearances in Davao
cabantian is silent, as it was silenced before.
no one knows. Perhaps he died at 15
...i do not really know and i do not want to recall.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Related quotes
The New Man
1
on those younger days
when i went up to the high and lonely mountain
i wrote about a young emaciated brown girl in the faraway hill
thriving on a chunk of muscovado
sugar and a handful of off-white steamed rice for breakfast
there was no dried fish on the plate of a banana leaf
i had written about an unjust social order
and i dreamed of immediate reforms
it was when i too was struggling then
over a loss of an identity in the city
over a poverty that struck us like a plague
of the century
2
now things have changed a lot
i cannot trace that girl
and the place where she once lived had been all erased from the map
the road had been closed
and the hill flattened to the ground
and i do not long for change anymore
my voice has mellowed like a cat with a wriggling fish in its mouth
it is silenced by my own social sinfulness
this contentment from within
because the social order now has fed me well
i have become a man stripped of its restless soul
masked and displayed as another useful tool
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Agrarian Unrest....
my father is a landlord.
He sent me to a big university in the city.
I studied philosophy.
The university taught me about equality.
Compassion. We studied existentialism
The poverty of the masses.
The agrarian unrest.
The essence of man
The quality of life
Justifications of living
Explanations of death
After life.
I wrote a class report about a child who ate
only a handful of rice for breakfast
plus brown sugar as viand
and then a glass of water for his thirst
from the nearby river
and then he was left in the house
as his father works in the field
and his mother
sells vegetables in the market.
When i left the child, The
heavy silence of the world fell upon my shoulder.
One day father took me for a vacation in our land.
There are mountains. Lots of trees.
A beautiful place.
There is a house there
Dilapidated. A tenant lives there
There is a hungry child.
Drought. Long hot days.
I pity the poor condition. But i no longer ask for the cause.
Then the tenant asks me if i can give him land.
Or a part of father's land.
I have no answer.
I could have told him, I do not own anything,
I do not live here
and father is still alive...
And wants me to be firm and cruel.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Poverty-I
Lot of hunger and having no food is poverty,
Not having spare cloth to take bath is poverty,
Needing a shelter but not having one is poverty,
Child's sick but can not buy treatment, is poverty,
Fainting child dreaming a mouthful of rice is poverty
Searching warmth in cold flesh in winter nights, is poverty,
Sitting with umbrella on wetting bed in showering night, is poverty,
Thoughtful mother, two mouthful of rice and three children, is poverty,
An ill, deserted mother selling her child wishing it will survive, is poverty.
A defeated and desponded mother poisoning and killing her child is poverty,
.
.
posted on 31-07-2008
Copyright ©®2008, Palas Kumar Ray. All rights reserved.
poem by Palas kumar Ray
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The Innocent Child
I was just a child, an innocent child
I didn't know when, I didn't know how.
I was just a child, an innocent child.
She couldn't save me from what happened,
even though she tried. She always tried.
she was my guardian angel.
I was just a child, an innocent child.
I couldn't be saved then, and I cant be saved now.
The dark angel came over, knocked on my door.
sucked the life out of my family, I was only 5.
I was just a child, and innocent child.
I didn't understand, Where did they go? What happened to mommy and daddy? What happened to sissy? Why didn't they come home last night?
They brought the car to my house, thought someone else would be home, but it was just me, just a little 5 year old..I looked at it... I saw the twists and the turns... the dents and the broken glass.. the scars will always be there.. I see it slamming into a ditch..rolling, rolling, and when it stops.
Silence...
I was just a child, an innocent child.
I didn't understand. how could that happen.. what happened?
I was just an innocent child, the innocent child.
She went away that night.. and she never came back.
poem by Forever Gone
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Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time.
quote by Grace Abbott
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Femagas
This is the simplest place
I'd been
Througout my life
The roads pure clay
The mountains pure trees
Nothing bald
No patch of brown
The flowers here bloom
All year round
And fogs hang on
Mountain sides like
Guavas
The children knows nothing
But the laughter of the rivers
The playfulness of worms and birds
The freedom of the monkeys
The staple food is brown rice
The best viand is City Sardine
The one with the Boat trademark
The best desert is a chunk
Of brown sugar
When one gets sick here
There is no doctor
They just consult all their gods
In their sacred caves
And when they die
No one mourns
The other side of the River
Where the boatman takes them
Is their perfect resting place
The Silence golden
The Quiet diamond-like
So Perfect & So Secluded
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Sonnet: The Magic of Poverty
A birth in poverty is luck supreme!
A death in poverty, a great blessing;
A life of poverty is rare a dream;
Achievements great, stark poverty can bring.
’Tis poverty that goads nations do feats;
’Tis poverty that stimulates scientists;
In everything, poverty, wealth just beats;
The greatest men were in poverty’s lists.
And poverty lessens our worries much;
Account to God will be much easier;
Poverty gives the saint a divine touch;
In poverty, poets can fly higher!
Poverty helps to shun worldly pleasures;
A soul in poverty, Heaven allures.
9-14-2002
poem by John Celes
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The Shadow Inside My Shadow
poverty is not my cousin,
is not my lover,
is not my preacher,
poverty is not my brother.
poverty is not my prayer,
or the song that i sing
is not my answer
poverty is not my dream.
poverty is not my teacher,
not the hand that i hold.
poverty is not my anger,
not my spirit, not my soul.
ah! but this poverty is real
it races thru my mind
crashes into my heart,
& leaves me deaf and blind.
poverty is my companion.
the aching cold inside my hollow.
the blow behind my eyes,
poverty is the shadow
inside my shadow.
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Help For The Poor
Forty Word Poem:
Poverty-trapped and poverty-stricken
To consider children in need is our mission.
Vintage harvest, but too small a yield;
Equality for everyone would be the ideal.
Bread must be shared now and evermore
Poverty's a subject worth fighting for.
poem by Joyce Hemsley
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Poverty In The 21st Century
It’s the 21st century
The media displays it day and night,
Poverty.
Poverty across the globe lies
Poverty cries out from the belly of little boys
Little girls, parents too
Desperately searching for food,
Shelter, clothing, for love,
Companion, for attention
Those with plenty, refuse
To amend, a world haunted by
Poverty.
Is poverty affecting the rich?
Are their poverty the same
As the poor in financial constrains?
For they, too, poverty of love
I see poverty in the learned
I see poverty in those whose
Selfish acts are destroying society.
I see poverty in all level of humanity
The world is still an imperfect place
Yet life is still beautiful, the wind
Blows, we see it not, give thanks
For what you possess, now go,
Help if you can along the way,
Help to eradicate poverty
In your surrounding, widen
Your boundary across your
Country, to nations of the world.
Help to fight poverty, now!
poem by Winston Harding
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Poverty is not a Calling
Poverty is not a calling,
Even if the priests think it is.
Poverty is a distraction,
The intellectual must think it so.
Think of the books you could have bought
Had you had money,
Or the food you may have eaten
In a posh hotel.
You soak garri in water
And wipe your mouth,
Then put on a fine shirt
So no one will know.
You are a lie - you know you want more;
Chicken dipped in sauce
And maybe some wine too,
But you cannot afford it.
You are ill
And so run to the chemist;
No doctor for you,
A card is three hundred naira.
Pain killers, multivitamins and blood capsules,
You will still have change;
Why then bother with the syringe
Or the bespectacled grave face?
You see?
Poverty denies you the good life;
You cannot do what
Your seeming betters do.
You discover it is a sad state,
Poverty is not a calling;
We both know that,
Even if we pretend not to.
poem by Samuel Nze
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Poverty's Child
Poverty's child,
An orphan on the street,
He runs for life,
He fights for food,
He has no home,
He has no shoes,
no mother, no father,
no nothing.
He dies young...
Poverty's child,
An orphan on the street.
poem by Joseph Fuller
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The Sugar Daddy's Woman
He is seventy four and she is twenty seven with light brown and wavy shoulder length hair
You've guessed right to say he is a sugar daddy one of the Town's wealthier a known millionaire
She feels she is better off with him than with one of her own age a fellow with only a few dollars to spare
He buys her a good time and he treats her as special and for her he does seem to genuinely care.
She is happy to be the sugar daddy's woman money speaks every language and 'tis always been that way
An old man with money better than a poor young bloke who will be a battler until his dying day
The Local young blokes of the older bloke jealous they find it hard to come to terms with how he
Could be going to bed with the Town's fairest young woman without realizing they are restricted by their poverty.
Than seventy four he looks many years younger at a guess one might say from fifty to fifty two
Amazing what a face lift and a bottle of brown hair dye as well as some makeup for an old face can do
She carries her first child it will be his seventh yet he feels as proud as any younger father to be
Her son or her daughter into wealth will be born and that sounds better than being born into poverty.
Despite she being pregnant she does look quite radiant her sugar daddy for her left his old wife
Money speaks every language seems all too apparent and she can look forward to a better life
Than being with one of her own age struggling to make ends meet when poverty bites in love quickly decay
And though she does not love her sugar daddy she does love his money a good reason with him why she ought to stay.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Mountain Of Poverty
this is what i can tell you:
the children are running in the hills
looking for their favorite butterflies to play
chasing dreams, i suppose, who knows
what they really know and
feel, i was once a child myself, perhaps i have the right to guess
what simple wants they have,
freedom, but i can tell you about something else,
their breakfast today is only brown sugar and rice,
and they have not taken their baths in the river because
the water is dirty, and there is no water system in the hills,
primitive, and still undeveloped, the grasses are not cut
tall and wild, and the coconut trees are not bearing much fruits,
there is drought, and the tenants do not have a good harvest
of their upland rice and there are rats infesting the rice fields,
it rains so hard, the road is slippery and we all have to walk slowly
to keep themselves warm, the men drink wine and smoke
the women do not weave mats anymore, they're sold cheap
and they are so disappointed with what they are getting
sugar is a precious commodity here, no coffee,
salt is expensive, salted fish is a luxury,
bread is like gold here and children do not know what is bread all about
cookies do not exist here
stone age, this is stone age in the midst of an expanding world
the children here are left out
i stare at them as they throw stones at play,
dirt and foul smell, but on the other hand i look at the pictures
that i took on that day
less the smell, less the dirt on their faces,
they are so beautiful, and the mountains are still hopeful.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Rice
Rice.
This time,
Spare us the gravy.
Eliminate the salt and pepper.
No butter or sweetened brown sugar to add!
Serve it up to nourish.
That's all we ask.
No need for the silver placements...
Or impressive china.
Nor the water goblets or crystal glass.
It is just rice!
What else to us has been passed?
We are here to get it plain and simple.
Direct and upfront.
And without the seasoned meat,
Promised and teased.
The rice we all once thought we liked...
Had been too disguised!
And this time...
We demand to know why,
The preparation took as long as it did.
Afterall,
Hasn't it been just rice?
And if not...
What was it?
Taking too long to surprise.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Poverty...
As poverty struck the lands,
The people crying out,
How life is so devastating,
For money they only catch trout.
But in these sad lands,
Poverty struck, worst of all is disease,
It doesn't just destroy humans,
But all the wildlife and trees.
As the children die,
The parents can't do much,
They can hold their child,
In the tightest clutch.
Not to kill them of course,
But to exterminate the, sad feelings,
The only funeral to give,
Is one with prayers and kneeling.
But there's no fancy place,
To commemorate, the dead,
They're buried underground,
Not the nicest bed.
But there they lay, now free,
From the land they once knew,
Still cared for and remembered,
Their bodies lying askew.
But they don't get what we do,
No protection from disease,
Nothing from mosquitoes,
Or the deadly fleas.
Maybe whilst reading this poem,
Many would have died,
Maybe even parents,
And then the many, cried...
poem by Viraj Bhanshaly
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on the 26th of July
i will have a room
at the Waterfront Hotel
Room 302
i will be alone
and will not
tell you
that i am there
it will be a big surprise
for you
unless you read this poem
today
there is a promise
in my words
each syllable has
desire
this poem shall be
a poem of passion
for us
this poem shall
not lie
this poem shall wait
for you
this poem shall
give you
so much pleasure
i have taken
already the element
of pain
and disgust
this poem shall see you
and you shall
not be disappointed again
yes, davao on a big day for just the two of us
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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What Happened to the Day?
'My child, what is that sound I hear
That rush of many feet,
I hear the people gathering
Tumultuous in the street,
I hear the people shouting
But I can't hear what they say,
The sun begins to set, my child,
What happened to the day? '
'I well remember waking, it
Was such a glorious dawn,
The clouds splashed red and tumbling
From Dante's palette born;
The clouds so red, it hurt my eyes
I had to look away,
Why look you so forlorn, my child,
What happened to the day? '
My memory has failed once more,
Again, it's taken wing,
You must remind these weary bones,
I don't recall a thing.
The clouds reflected through the house
Some sense of red dismay,
I ask you once again, my child,
What happened to the day? '
'My wife, my love of fifty years
Came out and smiled at me,
I sat her in her favourite chair
And then I let her be.
She doesn't always know me now,
Her mind has gone away,
Who are these men in uniform...
What happened to the day? '
'You keep reflecting on the blade
That's lying on my lap,
I must have carved the luncheon roast -
I can't remember that!
There's blood all over everywhere
But how, I couldn't say,
My child, my mind's beyond repair,
What happened to the day?
'I only acted out of love,
Whatever else is true,
If I could just remember
What it was I had to do?
These men are treating me so rough,
They're taking me away,
Your eyes are hard and cold, my child,
What happened to the day? '
17 October 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
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The problematic child
Necessity is the mother of invention,
People say. Then we can say like that:
Wealth is the mother of comforts,
And poverty, of meanness.
Wealth is the mother of indolence too.
So is poverty, of viciousness.
Wealth and poverty near by
Deliver discontent,
Which is a problematic child.
04.01.2009
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Jumbo
( brother theres a little sale )
( on, er..., on a vest )
( at ha, walmart )
( 9$ )
( yeah )
( 8 something )
( nice little vest, light )
Click [x4]
I need sugar
I need a little water of sugar
I get thoughts about you
And the night wants me like a little lost child
Locked in the safe place
Looking out the window
The dark move fast pass the window
The dark on the other side of the locked door
Click [x3]
My thumbs on a tetris keyring
Moving in brillant timing
You pick up the phone
And Im imagining it out
Click [x4]
Tiny wires in her ears
Sliding through the city
Tiny wires in her ears
Sliding through the city
Click [x8]
( expected early in the morning )
( expected early in the morning )
Rising in the morning to speak to you
Beneath the feet of the city
Click
You disconnect from me
Click
When you come to take your century
Telephone breath between us
The will of the world is between us
Only theses wires
Dust between the wires and green glass
In the distance
I am your tourist
( take you there in the morning )
( take you there in the morning )
( Im not pulling in returning )
( Im not pulling in returning )
( Im not pulling in returning )
( yep Ive searched for this part hang around the same stones )
( hang right there with them )
( well Ive never fished here )
( but Ive caught beaucoup fish in reverend burton )
( I never did catch fish )
( beaucoup fish in reverend burton )
( did check a tender slab )
( did you hear of that? crazy dog... )
Click click click
Sugar sugar
I want sugar
I want sugar
Sugar
I want sugar
I will I want sugar
I want sugar
I want sugar
I want sugar
I want sugar
I want sugar
Sugar
I want sugar
Sugar sugar...
( take you there in the morning )
( take you there in the morning )
song performed by by Underworld
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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