Poetry Corner: “As if Tourists”

As if Tourists

Perpetual poverty
baked rednecked existence in the sun
Islamic fanaticism breeding car bombs
one step away from starvation and death
receiving the self contempt sentence of life
worse imaging your children condemned to the same
hunted for by prig faced idiots from the government in the capital
(ironically respected)

so the homeland spews the excess into
the hands of the owners of production
industrial prosperity
but if lucky for this generation to the fringes
of the land milk and honey
where happy governments give money away
washing machine flats
gold and reddish coloured furniture
purchased after sweat soaked hours at menial tasks

For many the homeland remembered fondly
in reality a delusion that flicked them off like flies

If fortunate their children may escape into a corrupted liberation
of accountancy, law or risk and compliance
their parents becoming historical anomalies
like schizophrenic tourists

Robert K. Stephen