The Crack is a poem about poverty, the growing social divide and the widening wealth gap. It is also a reflection on the dehumanisation of “the poor”.
The Crack – A Poem About Poverty
There’s a crack in the surface of the earth where
people fall into darkness
and no one ever sees them creeping back over the
edge. Standing near the crack, all you see are
vermin scavenging for scraps.
I’ve seen the same crack in the middle of my garden, but
so far, I’ve managed to avoid
the black hole, unlike my kind neighbour who tripped
and fell down last week after a nudge from the woman
down the road. I’m quite sure I saw her
scurrying across my lawn this morning, now a long-tail rat.
I can’t tell you the course of the crack,
all I know is that it has carved its black into every continent.
I’m still waiting for a news report about it. Truth be told,
everyone knows about it, but
few dare to shed light on it. Some leaders are crafty and
shove their pests into it.
Now and then, you see someone casting a rope down
the crack to heave someone out before verminification. As you might
expect, some people turn rat keepers,
some preach that others belong in the shadows, others
disagree and build bridges across,
or walls. As for now, the crack remains, suiting some and
swallowing up many, many, many more people every day.
A pocketful is immune to the crack.
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