Ham-Fisted Times Poem by Lonnie Hicks

We live in Ham-Fisted times
where hand over hand Greed
and beady-eyed bankers
cheat retirees of their life savings
take people's homes
purchase legislators
like candy;
where lies and instant success
are seen as ok
as long as you don't get caught
and even if you do
you can buy your way out of it;
where TV blares murder and mayhem
and death rules our airways
where rape victims are told
'it wouldn't have happened if you were carrying a gun'
where trees die and no one notices
where profits are all that matter
where the young are not safe in school
where the young are not safe in church
where the young are not able to breathe the air
where the young die young.

We live in Ham-Fisted times
where daring to protest
brings down the Fist Hammer
where the goverment arms itself to the teeth
against citizens
where corruptilon is considered good business practice
where families are crushed and driven to poverty
jobs sent over seas
where honest work
means you are still poor;
where the 1% cheats
and declares themselves superior
and the rest of us 'loafers' and 'takers
where race festers
where anger lashes out
one against all
and all against the weak, and the defenseless
where most retreat into
private and secret pleasures
detaching themselves
from the carnage before them
they feel cannot or will not change.
Where war has maimed millions;
countries devastated
under Profit Bombs;
Where our schools, our prisons
our jobs, our futures
are sold to the highest bidders
where our dreams
have become slow-moving nightmares.

Where hope fro many lies on high-way-
road-kill
in the rush to dollar-mongering-
where face-saving, and sly treasons
against self and others
leers;

Where the myth lives that nothing can be done
is propagandized to us daily in the media
peddling to us Hopeless and Complacency.

Don't believe it.

All that is needed is for me,
you and those we know to rise;
all that is needed is for us
to get angry enough
to get off the couch
and leave the house with a purpose
and then, and then
the Ham-Fisted Ones will flee.
Promise you.