Poetry

WFP photo

By

Norberto Franco Cisneros

Compassion Is Expensive

Compassion is expensive, kindness even more.

“They’re always after your money,” the rich lament,

“so lock your doors, put bars on your windows and protect your assets,”

for their offspring they say. Or so they would have you believe.

But your children are fine, Mr. Rich man.

So why do you still persist in hoarding the millions you don’t need?

Are you planning on taking your millions beyond your death?

Or are you hiding them from the IRS?

How about the children of the brown ones you put in cages?

Is that in your grand plan to protect your money and property?

The needy, the poor, the elderly and the dreaded brown immigrant have no place here, you say.

Yes, they will usurp your wealth, won’t they, Mr Rich man?

The disease you carry is hurtful to the world

it abhors benevolence and embraces violence.

Love, compassion, and caring are emotions devoid of the infested and infected rich.

Caucasians have a covetous psychosis that has infected the world like a plague

but God blesses the guiltless children, the downtrodden elderly and the poor hoping

strong voices with a brave heart, verve, diligence, dedication, and honesty will emerge

to conquer the insatiable hunger of the greedy rich.

So Let It Be Written

Some would say it’s greed and gluttony.

others would say it’s overpopulation and wars

Others say it is laziness and a sloth spirit

Some would scream it’s the absence of God!

While some pinnacle captains, retired and fat, sit back and smile

reposing on their laurels musing, “It is all of the above, good people,

but who cares, the poor will always complain we have too much money

and they have barely enough to live on.”

“We have our own worries, too,” they bemoan.

“We worry about getting the next dollar, acquiring our next possession

but we fear the poor and the IRS. No, we don’t have any feelings of compassion for the destitute.

They’re poor because they didn’t work hard, we’re not responsible.

The IRS is just out to get our hard earned money.”

And so it goes with humanity, some can’t seem to learn that this planet is finite

that Armageddon lies ahead not because of war but because we’re devouring the planet,

add to that the shortsighted avarice of the politicians and Wall Street rigging the markets

and when they err we pay for their self-indulgent criminal deeds.

In the process we’re ravishing our world making it more difficult to feed

and house the people, consuming its many resources from earth’s animals, sea creatures

down to plankton and seaweed, but the culprit of it all is the ungodly enticement of money,

lucre, greenbacks and stupidly believing there is a bank in eternity to store their loot.

Longevity of time is God’s realm

we are but short-lived butterflies in His net

living to our optimum of a fraction of a second of His-years.

Lest we forget that only God and souls are forever, not our bodies or money.

So examine your lives, brothers and sisters

learn the truly important moral lesson Life has taught us so far

that to exist in this world without conflict takes togetherness

and to understand that sharing with a righteous spirit

was written in the Book of God by God several eternities ago.

It’s imperative to realize, we may be alone in this universe, that all we have is each other

and what the world has to offer must be shared, if we’re to survive.

If we can do that, we can look forward to the heavenly messenger descending

with the good news saying, “Love has come to pass, so let Love reign,

so let it be written. God has spoken!”

Norberto Franco Cisneros

My poems have been published in the following publications: Indiana University Journal Chiricu; Avocet Review (Avocet Press); Snow Jewel (Grey Sparrow Press); Ilumen (Mouthfeel Press/ Sam’s Dot Publishing) and several others, including e-zines, Black Petals, Ruhatish and have been a Featured Poet in Poetry Soup