From Something to Nothing, Poverty Kills

Deep in a forgotten alley 

Beneath today's paper lies  

Someone that once was 

A father but the courts took his rights 

A son but his mother has long passed 

His own father but a figment of a different time 

He doesn't seem to know the time 

It has forgotten him as well 

He is homeless, poor and the face of poverty 

Empty of emotion and life 

He’s a shell with cracks showing 

Cracks lined along wrinkled skin 

Hardened by the streets he lives in 

Hopeless or should I say loveless 

No one seems to respect a man who has less 

Although through his veins rivers run deep 

The blood of kings and queens 

His deep black skin tells the truth of America 

In his moment of glory, the plot was already thickening 

He was rising like the morning sun 

Full of promise and great potential 

He would not bend and break by societal rules 

He couldn’t conform to those capitalistic dues 

He became a martyr of a forgotten cause 

The face of poverty 

Wounded by capitalism 

Tricked by socialism 

Made dependent by Democrats 

Trampled by Republicans 

Forgotten by society 

But blamed for societal ills 

He embodies poor, poverty, minority, the underdog 

He is human 

Tony L. Jefferson, Jr. 2013