Rat Race Poem by Prabhakar Subramaniam

Death came early
Like a wintry night
Out to put out all light;
Friends could not tell
Friends from fiends
Who wore their shoes everywhere
Not caring what they trampled upon;
The toys were plucked away
From three-year-olds
Who were pushed into the rat race;
The funeral pyres
Of normal desires
Never stopped burning
There were so many corpses falling
That mass graves became handy
It didn't matter to anyone
If you ate or slept
Or laughed or cried
It didn't matter
If you lived or just died;
There was talk for a while
Of a safety net
Before the proposal
Was dropped as not cost-effective;
The law of the jungle
Was embraced like the truth
By those who preyed
On those who merely prayed