When The Statistics Is Read Poem by Kenneth Maswabi

Living under the poverty datum line
Children play with empty stomachs
Mothers weep from their close encounters with death
Fathers are chronically weak
From their courageous attempts to cross the poverty datum line
Nothing is amusing when you are hungry
Poverty is not only a pandemic for the poor families (countries)
It's a malignant cancer for the human psyche
Our collective consciousness might be thriving
But deep underneath we are losing the moral fibres
That held humanity together for eons of years
Poverty is not only wreaking havoc in the homes
It's puncturing the veil of human integrity
Allowing the face of humanity to be exposed
To other marauding scavengers like diseases
That feed on human flesh
We saw the rise of Covid-19 disease
With its ferocious appetite
We became fodder in its mouth
We became the statistics in the book of records
When the statistics is read
Let us be ready to cover our mouths
The stench of poverty is overwhelming
World economies are drowning
World poverty is increasing
And the poverty datum line is bloated
Fully engorged with human suffering

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