We Cannot Continue Like This Poem by Phillip Nine Mafunga

Contest of shame and pride
Hiding in nakedness under the clear skies
But to schemers, it's all ways and means
As dusk breathes a slow sound of sorrow
Street kids having sniffed it away in search of life's answers
Their bare bellies on the cold concrete street
They failed to find solace in our book system.

Those of means and ways; from behind high walls
Protected by guns, lucre and shopping malls
Help litter our streets with dead futures
Escorted to fame by corrupted law,
Treading on streets littered with young motionless, living bodies
Bright futures snuffed away;
Young lives all stolen by a bottle of codeine!
11 April 2021