Please Stand Up Poem by RIC BASTASA

for those who want to die
please stand up

for those who want
to be counted as another
victim of injustice
please stand up

for those who want
to be imprisoned without
a guilty hand or mind
please stand up

for those who want to
disappear from this world
for those who want
to be mothers and mourn
for the death and disappearance
of their sons
please stand up

for those fathers and wannabe
breadwinners
soon you will lose your job
and soon another depression comes
please stand up

for those who expect too much from government
only to be disappointed
on a rising statistical data
for unemployment and inflation
and market crashes
please stand up

for those who want to be
a part of a sea disaster
or an avalanche or a tsunami
for those who want to be
part of the manifest of those
who perish either
by fire or water or air

for those who perish
from a calamity
nature-made or man-made
please stand up

tell me your name,
state your address
and telephone number

you don't want to be in?

good heavens!
the judgment committee
has already taken your name

this is the inevitable
this is not preventable
and so
prepare, the next day
it shall be you or her or him
(or me)

thank you
for not standing, destiny
shall make you
stand just the same