Enactments

Now that their feelings of betrayal...
And being disgruntled,
Have a rawness about it...
They believe there is a commonness,
Left to express those displeasures...
With those historically distressed.

Those they would normally regard as pests!
And that was just...
Yesterday!

With their duress confessed,
During these suppressed times...
They seem to quickly display,
A discomforting selfishness...
They wish would go away,
To unwind and leave behind.
Like keys left with the butler or maid.

If not for temporary and sentimental reasons!

When the times were good for them...
They would not be seen,
Appearing in daylight...
With 'those' disadvantaged on urban streets.
Exposing their faces on such scenes.
And rubbing shoulders,
With these 'underlings' they meet!

'These surroundings?
How gouache.
Tasteless.
And so unbecoming! '

They would have ignored them,
As not being among those blessed!
They would have compared their separateness...
By comparing acquired materialism,
That kept them feeling falsely blessed.

But somehow their current fellowship expressed,
Seems more like a pretentiousness hiding a desperation.
And spreading a shallow attempt,
To solicit empathy from those who can least afford it.
Those who know who 'they' are!
And why they have been kept by 'them' suppressed.

Those things they once had,
No longer provides the escape...
From their insecurities now exposed.
So they have 'chosen' to be amongst the poor.
To uplift a hollowness...
Left from a loneliness of an emptiness felt.
Somehow,
This can not be easily erased.
Or from them now to go ignored.
Or replaced...
As one awaits for delivered luggage,
To leave quickly a bad vacation.

Especially when faces of a different hue...
Reminds them of a racistness they inflicted,
And kept in place to subdue...
In brutal disrespect.

Who knew these times would be so stinging.
Leaving so many unprepared?
To unpack cares and fresh hints of concern.

Now 'they' appear as if in research...
Seeking a way to find a comfort.
One that is not as demeaning as seen,
Or vividly portrayed...
By those who seem professional,
Recreating enactments placed upon them...
To do that poverty 'thing'
Done so well!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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