World Affairs

What is the rich world to me?

Simply a shiny, wretched thing

Writhing on the mattress of slimy wealth

Like a little crazy caterpillar,

Fattened by its own frivolous ego.

The world that was decades ago

Was not like this one:

It was a fine print of rich culture

With an occasional slight guilt

About nurturing its own little lot.

Now, people with great hurry and worry

With so little time for themselves

Scurry on roads, sludge and bridges.

Their daily drudges in gigantic offices

Go on in never-ceasing smooth ruts.

These poor tiny figures, then,

Move back to their tiny homes

And unemotional, immobile apartments

Languidly with bent heads and slouched shoulders

Like their remote ancestors, Neanderthals.

Alas! These modern men of frail frames

Simply silhouetted against jumbo walls

Of tall, arrogant buildings

Looking out over the congested clusters

Of filthy, scattered slums

Festering with their own decadent problems

And sweltering slowly with their salty sweat

Rolling down their brows, temples and breasts  

In hard-sucking mills and factories_

The epitomes of cruelty and no hope.

All the multitudes here simply grope

Through the billowy black clouds

Of their dark, awesome Destiny.

With kicks and tricks, guesses and stresses,

They move here round on stony ground

Of legal laws and shaky circumstances.