From Washington, DC to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, for an agricultural development conference, held at the Golden Horse Casino Hotel, May, 2007.
I don’t mean to fly off the handle but
flying off…all the way to Pietermaritzburg,
conferencing in KwaZulu-land, and
there I was, driven past the hotel spikes
stuck up like some teenage hair-do,
the Golden Horse Casino Hotel venue
for poverty-reduction talk!—the foyer packed
with lottery dreaming seniors spinning slots.
My own motive’s not far off, whirling
words around an elegant Σ of squares
the total’s still the lust to win. Golden
geese fly over the shanty poor, dark
horses hobbled in arrears. High’s up;
now’s back; the distance done: my jackpot speech.
Coda*
Dressing the rich in rags is haute couture.
The chic wear slogans–rouge their eyes with kohl.
Meanwhile the ‘underprivileged’ barely endure.
Nobody goes broke working for the poor.
* I dedicate this poem to Wang An-Shi (1021–1086), the Chinese statesman who lived during the Sung dynasty when the state was impoverished by the need to pay tributes to invading barbarians. As a result radical reforms were demanded. Wang An-shi, a poet and writer as well as a statesman, developed a program of far-reaching reforms. He abolished tax immunities of big landowners, ended forced labor on public works in favor of money payment, and instituted the buying and selling of essentials by the state. These reforms were deliberately sabotaged by the civil servants and he was compelled to resign in 1076.
