HIGH DEMANDS

LOSS

The money stacks in the banks
as the hands of the homeless tremble holding the cardboard saying they
are hungry and the little change they have collected all day the money
stacks in the banks
as great unknown poets lie dying with nothing under trees
and ageing factory workers work longer and longer hours
until their bones throb with aching just to keep cheap tiny rooms and
men being evicted from apartments
scream and strike their little girls again and again and 60-year-old
men who have never been in trouble
ruin their lives
going back to companies that laid them off
with guns the money stacks in the banks as the children grow thin and pale
with nothing to eat and jobless men
who once owned houses sit in backyards
all day with bottles and eyes
like tombstones the money stacks higher and higher in the banks but it will never buy
back our souls.

Paramedics brave and strong
Up before the break of dawn
Putting poker faces on
Broken bodies all day long
The neighbors heard a fight
Someone had a knife
It must have have been the wife
Husband’s lost a lot of blood
He wakes up screaming
“Oh my God, am I gonna die?
Am I gonna die?”
As they strapped his arms down to his sides
At times like these they’d been taught to lie
“Buddy just calm down, you’ll be alright”

Several friends came to his grave
His children were so well-behaved
As the priest got up to speak
The assembly craved relief
But he himself had given up
So instead he offered them this bitter cup
“You’re gonna die, we’re all gonna die
Could be twenty years, could be tonight
Lately I have been wondering why
We go to so much trouble to postpone the unavoidable
And prolong the pain of being alive”

AS WE SPEAK OF JUSTICE AND VIRTUE
by Fred Voss

We are thieves
as the man who wanted a job starves in the alley,
we are thieves
lying on rich soft beds looking innocently up at ceilings,
we are thieves
sipping drinks on balconies looking at sunsets
depositing money from good jobs in banks
lying on sundecks on world cruizes
slipping buttery lobster onto tongues
trying on $100 earrings,
as the men who wanted a job starves in the alley
we are thieves
taking communion in churches
studying Picasso in classes
lifting beautiful children up to our hearts full of love,
in voting booths, in the finest country clubs,
with a cabinet full of civic honors,
playing a game of chess on a glass table,
we are thieves
born to the best families,
thieves
that no policeman will ever arrest,
thieves
home free
as the man who wanted a job starves in the alley.