Pretending
Priming years
Pulpit dogma from lips
Caked of sanguine ploys
Rewards of blessings
Punishments of fire
Ignorance years
Media’s pickpocketing
Wanna-be adults
Working the cravings
Offering eye candy as nutrition
Relegating brains to starvation
Observing years
The agony of hunger
The drool-laden faces
Staring through pizzeria windows
Suffering fun-filled dough throwing
Like a cruel Pavlovian test
Near-death years
Central Park’s homeless
Residing atop benches darkly
Their newspaper blankets
Tucked tight around their dreams
Dancing cheek to cheek
Nightmare years
Variant dogged dreams
Reminding God’s promises
Media’s trolling for vicarious submissions
Hunger’s reality
Security’s vagrancy
Epiphany years
Prized silver spoon success
Tarnishing beneath palm tree splendor
Contemplating manicured beachfront property
Awaiting the next wave
At last craving one big enough
To wash pretension away
Restore simple desires
To better the you of you
Not the you of them
Reflection years
How sublime to find love and contentment
Through understanding want
Over desire
Knowing Imagination need not
Be pretending
But can be enlightenment
Of simplicity
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Makes me wonder what Bush's "Thousand points of light" have done for the poor. It's obvious that charities alone cannot solve the problem of homelessness and hunger when the largest recipients are the coffers of the politicians, making sure that the ultrariche pay little or no taxes.
Your poem also indicates that those of us who have bought the idea of conspicuous consumption and try to impress by spending rather than living simpler lifestyles are part of the problem by consuming and hoarding rather than giving generously to those in need.
Ron