Showing posts with label Urban decay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Urban decay. Show all posts

Saturday, 9 July 2016

System Down (August 25, 2014)

Optical illusion
War fought and won
Through the legal
And political systems.

Discrimination
Although illegal
Is fact of life
With a bitter smile.

Ghettoization
By fear
And economic needs
Just out of sight.

Children are cannibalized
Without a second thought
Mental health system
Drowning in numbers.

Hope
A caustic pill
Things will get better.

Therisa © 2014

Author's note: Written during the Ferguson, Mo, civil unrest, as I struggled, with my second bout of severe agoraphobia, costing me, the summer of 2014.

Saturday, 2 January 2016

Avenue Of Broken Dreams (December 18, 2015)

It's month end
Again.

As I walk
Down the Danforth
On my monthly pilgrimage
For food money
And transit tokens.

Striding past
A once thriving Mecca
For small independent businesses.

But
No more.

Instead
Dust mice and spiders
Now
Hold their daily courts
In these abandoned shops.

Everywhere
One looks
"For lease" signs
Have sprung up
Like a field of Dandelions
Assaulting ones eyes.

The lucky property owners
Have found
Their "Sugar Daddies"
Or "Sugar Mommas".

In rich developers
Seeking to build
Condo towers
With their gentrification
Dream.

Leaving the community
Bereaved and poorer.

As part
Of its soul
Is left behind
To die.


Therisa © 2015


Author's Notes: I live, in 1 of 13 communities that the city of Toronto and various NGOs have labelled, as "high priority neighbourhood", which translates, into English, as high levels of poverty, with the lack of resources and willpower to change this. Even convenience stores have gone bankrupt, here.

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