Death Triangle

Just sharing one of my poems -- as usual. Enjoy, and please do not quote without my express permission. Thanks.

Death Triangle – 2/18/08

Old money, no money and many-a-disease

Triple neighbors in a Bermudan headlock

They have unnatural identities – christened afresh

With names like Kwashiokor, Polio, and Rickets

River Blindness, Beri Beri and Respiratory Troubles

Malaria and Chicken Pox, Measles and Fevers

Diarrhea and Cholera, Flus and Depression

Thrashed bodies and twisted bones –

Morbid identities

Right before my eyes, they glide silently by

Pouting bellies mounted on cassava stilts

Fly-garnished little faces, with salty traces

Torment from unwelcome companions -

Mosquitoes and roaches, rats and scorpions

Worms and ticks, lice and mice – one big gang

Sucking and tearing, eating up and destroying …

Old money, no money and many-a-disease

~~~~~~~

New money, full bellies and still many-a-disease

Easy-going lovers spiraling into a blissful abyss

Sedentary lard, glued to a sofa, stuck to a bed

Rolling in comfort, no neighbors like roaches

In these Antarctic havens, no neighbors like ticks

Deadly names still emerge from new asylums

Diabetes and Heart Disease, Obesity and Depression

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, dying eyes behind spectacles

Here are the new lovers in the loaded triangle

Sky-high cholesterol and growing sodium mines

Anti-social butterflies, isolated from all nature

Trapped in a steel planet, robots at their service

Princes and princesses of dear old Zamunda

The future still unfolds, and eyes are yet to see

How living in a box, and dwelling on sugar mountains

Become the biggest robbers of childhood vitality

Diamonds in the rough, concealed by old giants

True pearls and precious jewels regardless of their state

All deserve the zenith of what this life can offer

No more love affairs between strange bedfellows –

Old money, new money, no money and many-a-disease

Dare to lift them out of their very miry clay

Dare to liberate them out of their muddy spiral

Dare to deliver from Bermudan strongholds

Dare to give life, amidst many, many deaths

Their angels are failing, their muses are silent

Dare to give life, and dare to inspire

It’s almost 4am, and there’s something rather heavy on my mind. I needed to get this poem out before heading to bed. This poem rises out of my concern of the health of our children. Those of generations past and present, suffer many diseases that economic relief can handle. Access to health care and better living conditions would certainly help to give better care – better surroundings, better food, etc etc. These are the diseases that were/are easily preventable, stemming from poverty.

Fast forward into our world today. We have a new kind of problem – children with so much that their health is also adversely impacted. New lifestyle diseases are plaguing newer generations. Call it what you will – a rural-urban distinction in health status; middle class versus poor or working class; … call it what you will, but the reality is that our children today from nouveou-riche families, fed on junk food and computer games, have a different set of health problems. Health problems non-the-less, that plague both the affluent and the poor. Somebody needs to speak up. A voice of reason must emerge. While we concern ourselves with the health problems of poor children, we must acknowledge that the wealthy children are fighting the same demons all spiraling into a gaping abyss ...

- esi.