Come To Think Of Them Poem by RIC BASTASA

beggars wearing
white robes
and large diamond
ring in their
middle fingers
by the authority
of God
they live all
in luxury
tax free

robbers wearing
fine, expensive suits
accorded accolades
and reaping honors
from plain
juan de la cruz
invoking the authority
of your state

holy and honorable
in their respective
thrones all built
by the bricks and
limestones of
our ignorance and
gullibility

we are the people
and we are the kings
and yet we look so
miserable living
miserable in poverty
in sickness in death

we sew the white robe
and the fine suit and
let them wear them
as we take and thrive
on tattered clothes
and listen to our rattling bones