Passionate Petroleum’s Rambling Roads

(Rubbish along the Orient Excess)

Waste
for miles
across
fields
and meadows
Without
origin
without
demise.
No paint
no part
nor place
for the new
for the clean
as if
whole countries,
whole peoples
used all their space
soiled
for displaying
domestic
disgrace.
In capital(s) ruinous
creativity,
superfluous
construction
is fed
by enforcing
others’ destruction.
Obvious struggle
to build homes
out of rubble
only
for people
indeed that’s the trouble
suppressed
with extravagance,
dressed without shame
the only vile
surplus,
Oh, the poor are to blame.

Dr T.P. Wilkinson writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is also the author of Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..