forgotten % growing (poem) by Odin Roark on AuthorsDen

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forgotten % growing
by Odin Roark
Friday, September 21, 2012
Rated "PG13" by the Author.

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Recent poems by Odin Roark
•  Toxic Cake
•  Love LIke a Sweater
•  Finding Home
•  Dying Alive
•  Showerhead Liberation
•  Doors and Entrances
•  Mind's Labor Camps
•  Funhouse Distortion
•  Rust-framed Reflections
•  Cobblestones Gasping
•  Age
•  Poem as Surrogate
•  Colorless Tears
•  Scar-like Healings
           >> View all 478

In 2011, the official poverty rate was 15.0 percent. There were 46.2 million people in poverty. 9/20/12 The New York Times reports an estimated 21 percent of New Yorkers are now considered poor, while many of the city's richest only grew richer. The disconcerting report reveals a widening income gap comparable to income gaps in sub-Saharan African countries.

forgotten % growing

haves
have nots

people
humans

some finding
storefront sanctuaries
salvation this
salvation that
people in need

existence
dumpsters
trash cans
soup lines
cardboard blankets

eat
sleep
out of one box
into another
routine nightmares
perpetual

estranged
hunched over life
avoided by family
best friends
acquaintances
even favorite enemies

busy busy
stringing guitars on Mars
searching for Zeus in empty power drink cans
trying to understand
finding a place in line
ignoring the reality of unreality
scratching heads for something alive
anything
just something
alive

‘cause

suffocation cells stay dank
caged by sweat-stained bars
hellfire light
waste-filled air
while fear hoses the floor
despair wipes the walls

all while

squeezed in society's petri dish
the smallest % remains a truth
hard to contain
poised to ooze out
grow larger
beyond some delusional choice
to only see a microscopic presence

the forgotten %
painfully growing

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Reviewed by Diana Legun	10/1/2012

Staggeringly succinct, gnashingly honest and strangely beautiful because of the choice of words! . . . each holding the voltage of a bolt of lightning. Beyond powerful piece of writing. My fingers are stinging writing response upon this keyboard. ~~ Diana




Reviewed by Morgan Merriweather	9/22/2012

well hide your wallet because it is going to get worse. That may sound dramatic but, look , as you have written, very closely around you.




Reviewed by Roger Wayne Eberle	9/22/2012

rendering the pithy with pathos is your patent in poetry, my friend, to salvage among the bricabrac for the cents of salvation is to miss the massaged message to the masses... but your poem makes it abundantly clear: objections of the mere marginalized may not be raised higher than the mean income of the impoverished without incurring a national disaster in need of much more than just another relief fund. To state it simply: those that are broke needs a fix... and that's not just the straight dope I'm talking about either. I like your use of personification rendering the abstractions of fear and despair as a quasi-clean-up-crew... ...and rendering or should I say reducing the forgotten masses to a mathematical symbol (sans name, sans number)... that is the real growing pain you so masterfully end with... Good work, Odin.




Reviewed by Christine Tsen	9/22/2012

Very powerful, richly perceptive poetry and message ~ Be well, write on, Christine




Reviewed by Mr. Ed	9/22/2012

The very saddening gap now gets wider every day, While our millionaire 'leaders' adjourn to play.




Reviewed by richard cederberg	9/21/2012

It's become (what is beginning to appear as) a pandemic down here in SoCal. And even though there are many altruistic outreaches helping, the problem is only getting worse. Thousands, now, are squatting in flood control tunnels. A disaster one heavy rain away. What can be done? I have no answers. The message here is clearly expressed. peace ...

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