For To Battle The Odds Poem by Francis Duggan

Born into life for to battle the odds
They are the children of the lesser gods
Homeless and hungry on Poverty Street
The challenge of survival everyday they do meet

By the judgmental expected to fail
Their parents for drug offenses confined in jail
Strangers to love and to happiness
Survival for them their idea of success

Like their parents in prison they may spend some time
As they too are involved in drugs and in crime
Street wise teenagers who only know of life as tough
Who steal for survival and have to live rough

They will never go to college or university
Or be awarded with any sort of a degree
On Poverty Street left to their own device
No one for to offer them good advice

Born to disadvantage and bad circumstance
For to succeed in life they stand little chance
Most of them to forty will not survive
Success to them is just to be alive.