Modern problems: A poem 

Children are finding social media’s treasures and gems 

Mothers have long given up darning their own hems 

Fathers are only wistfully looking to escape life’s problems 

The television is doing the talking in the silence between them 

On the street, the beggar is whistling for more than a cent 

A man in a suit hugs his valise, his veins have a stent 

There are no lepers in the cities, but each citizen has a curse 

of plagues and famines; and leaders weaving webs of power and purse 

Some are carrying the flags of Red Cross and Medicins Sans Frontiers 

A drop in the ocean is hardly worth so many billions of tears 

The billboards have a vision, they are boasting all their cures 

And when the package is opened, the debt is, eventually, all yours 

Tigers have lost their forests; the woods are all being sawed 

The corporates spew poison, but pay wages. Thank the Lord! 

Who feels the guilt of centuries? For Africa is not white 

The sun is going down, we’ll soon be standing in the night