Friday 3 June 2016

Throwaway People (June 3, 2015)

In my community
Where poverty is
The way of life
For too many.

We struggle
To hold hope
Within our heart
On a daily basis.

Fighting
Against the urge
To become
Another drug town.

In seeking
An avenue
Of escape
In whatever form
Available.

Where
Death is found
A penny
For a dozen souls.

Regardless
Of race
Or gender.

In numbing
Our senses
Against
The brutal grind
Of daily life.

As the mentally ill
Are found
In the discount bins
Of the local Wal-Mart.

Abandoned
And forgotten
By society
Like yesterday's DVDs.

Only
To be tossed
In the local
Landfill.

Therisa © 2016

Author's note: The above protest poem was created, from this word bank: community, hope, poverty, drug town, and Wal-Mart.

For the record, I live, in one of thirteen "priority neighbourhoods", in the city of Toronto, that lacks basic infrastructure, which a modern community needs, to sustain, the development of a healthy population. Where, the local supermarket, is nothing more, than a convenience store.


Due to budget cuts, over the past decade, in Ontario, the mental health programs have declined to the point, long term programs are being eliminated and replaced, with short to medium term ones. With the added burden of long waiting lists, to those long term programs that still exist. Literally, a penny-wise, and a pound foolish, as the old saying goes. 

8 comments:

Maude Lynn said...

Really well said.

Anonymous said...

Ontario's "priority neighborhoods" sound like the ghetto suburbs of France and elsewhere in Europe, where here in the USA the ghettos lie in the abandoned centers of the cities, while whites flee for the suburbs. But those suburbs are sick places too, with every insane pleasure paid for on credit not real money ... A large percentage of our prison population are mentally ill -- no other place in our society afforded for them -- and the soaring numbers of opiate-related deaths (including Prince) say that the pain of sanity is too great everywhere. Anyway, a very pointed and true write, especially that bin of abandoned DVDs.

brudberg said...

Society has a way of discarding people.. Of not caring... The image of old DVD:s and the landfill is a sad image where the value of humans is set in material terms...

Marian said...

Forgotten like yesterday's DVDs... yeah. I'm with you.

Therisa's World said...

Sadly, Blueoran, the city center is being gentrified, by pushing out the homeless and poor, to the suburbs, as expensive condo units, are being built on the shores of Lake Ontario, in Toronto. The kicker part of this disastrous joke, is the services that they need to access, haven't followed the people, when they have left the city core. Thus, have to travel some times more than an hour, on transit, to access these programs, if they can.

Therisa's World said...

Thank you, Mama Zen, but wish, I wasn't writing, from my own personal experience.

Therisa's World said...

But, true, Bjorn. Society, today, is hyper-focus on the bottom line, and not, on the human cost that can't be measured, in dollars and cents.

Therisa's World said...

Wish I had an answer, which would change society's attitude to the poor and mentally ill, Marian, but, I can't think of one, that won't cost billions of dollars to do so.

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