Like Mama Did Too Poem by Effie Yalena Steyn

An inner city farm for inner city kids
They know no different just the broken way they live
Hey mum, where does pork come from?
Look it in the eye, cry, but still it dies

School teaches making coke in Chemistry
How to shoot and kick and evade capture in PE
Grafittied Concrete walls make the slum complete
Day after day, pray, but they'll still never find the right way

Corkboards had enough memory, but now a Sony Ericsson will do
Spare time- handfuls of gravel at a window they threw
Driving stolen Ford Escorts or Jaguars, pulse racy
A less-than-perfect family makes for Bundy and Gacy

But there's no complaining
It's raining, no complaining
Bills need paying, no complaining
In a Cul-De-Sac rut there's not even a tut
Struggle on silently through a black and white life like mama did too.

A country-club outing for the country club kids
They know no hardship just the pampered way they live
Raise a finger for the butler raise the poker stakes no fear
A trust fund pays or that’s how it always appears

Boarding school cricket Saturdays small minded small talk
Fags serve pink lemonade out on the boardwalk
A pony for a birthday and a Porsche if there's bonus pay
Night after night, fight, for a solo dance in the spotlight

A green green lawn on which croquet they played
In the live-in gardeners' spare time was made
A helicopter thuds above, the sound of money
A caviar ride, polite laughs at what's not funny

Five spot for the valet, twenty for the maid
Its not unusual for Pavarotti hired to serenade

And there's endless complaining
House too small, complaining
Look too old, complaining
Fashions out, complaining
Life too cold, complaining
In life's secluded upper ring, hassle not joys the storks bring
But they glide on through glossed lives just pearly, like mother did too.