a dollar a day

spawns endless throngs

souls bought and sold

for less than a song

have nots coaxed, cloaked, collared, then crushed

death flesh robots

cash for the lust

night after night

the lunatics’ delight

packaged and racked

flat on your back

‘til aids not grace

Cuts “um some slack

not Dachau nor Darfur

but genocide of the poor

no matter how incensed

theses sentences be

there are not sentences

that capture

the sentences of these

until some greater awakening

sparks mass indignation

from every color, creed and nation

absent emancipation without proclamation

fomenting a mission and purge

a terrible swift verve

in blood, sweat and treasure

equal no less in measure

to ten thousand Gettysburgs

Scott Robinson, 2011