poems about justice

In the Back

Kindly sit in the back,
Know your place,
Things are as they should be,
Don’t rock the boat,
What are you fussing about?
Seen but not heard,
Shadow passing unperceived.
Struggles of the
Past revisited,
Wound reopened,
Hadn’t healed as much
As we all thought,
If at all.
Turn back the clock,
Reinstitute reviled institutions,
Things were much better
Back then,
Before the unrest.

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Trespasses

I didn’t have
Anything to do
With that.
Self-serving exculpation
Boldly proclaimed,
Passionately articulated,
Heavy conscience
Compensating for known
Trespasses unadmitted.
Thoughtless behavior,
Scarcely cloaked enmity
Socially sanctioned,
Demean the dispossessed.
A greasy plate of ridicule
Served with a steaming
Side of animus.

Cost of Living

Peering through
The department store window
At clothes she’ll
Never own.
Figures sneering inside,
Watch the door,
Keep her out,
What could she possibly
Want in here, such a bother,
Why doesn’t she go home?
The car she lives in
Is parked a few blocks away,
No gas in the tank,
No transportation, no job,
Sorry about that,
Cost of living, you know.

Rightful

Advantages abounded
Wherever he went,
No extraordinary effort required,
Just had to be who
He was born as.
Then, one day,
A door was closed,
One had opened for someone else,
A woman no less.
A child denied a toy,
He became bitter, resentful,
Devoting reasonless
Energy to making sure
No one else like him
Would ever have to suffer,
Defer to lesser mortals,
A crusade to reclaim his
Rightful place at the table.

Give Just Once

Give just once to
Appease conscience.
A small token of uncaring,
Doled out annually with
Magnanimous gesture.

Return home satisfied.
Problems and injustices
Solved with one pair of jeans or
A single meal.

As Far as She’s Concerned

Raised by nannies,
Occasional, stilted interactions
With figurehead parents
Pass for affection.
Sent off to boarding school,
Fed a steady diet of
Impersonal, cold axioms
Rendering her
Unable to feel a kinship
With people, animals, situations.
Never taught how to bond
With anything other than
A vague sense of superiority,
Underlying emptiness.
Self-contained – self-centered,
Isolated from reality,
Disconnected from others,
No need to consider them,
Let alone have any contact.
They become an afterthought,
Unimportant, inhuman,
Unworthy of any attention or help.
After all, she got none,
As far as she’s concerned.

Jack Up

Complete lack of
Pretense,
No longer hiding —
No need to —
The new normal.
Flagrantly
Slash the size of
Vital goods,
Cheapen products until
Barely usable,
Downsize until a
Dozen means six —
Or less.
Eliminate unnecessary
Frills that used to
Be part of the deal.
People will bellyache for
A while, but their
Memories are short.
Oh yes, one more thing…
Remember to jack up
The price.

Conserving

Obsessed with conserving…
Conserving his own money,
Conserving his own beliefs,
Conserving his own rights,
His own territory,
His own race,
His own language,
Own social circle,
Own music.
Conserving his own idealized,
Whitewashed version of what the
Country looked like in the 1950s,
When everything was perfect and
There were no problems with
Uppity people trying to upset
The established order.
Everyone stayed in their place,
Knew what was expected.
You took care of your neighbors,
Kept undesirables out,
A perfect, homogeneous community,
Encircling some, excluding the rest.

Mugging

Family of four,
Two working parents,
Each has two jobs —
Minimum wage,
Walk through the doors of a
Den of institutionalized mugging.
A clerk behind
Bulletproof glass
Perfunctorily walks them
Through the lawful robbery
Of their car,
A five-hundred dollar
Noose that quickly,
Mercilessly grows tighter.
Paperwork hastily completed,
A sleazy handshake and smile,
A saga dreadfully familiar.
Not long thereafter,
In the middle of the night,
A tow truck pulls up.