Poverty Poem by RIC BASTASA

he is arrested today on a charge of grave threats
against his very own aunt who owns a store selling rice and salted fish
and sugar and coffee and eggs and mongo beans

he has nothing to eat and hurt his back and cannot really walk straight
like an ordinary man
yesterday he asksed a little help from his aunt for he was so hungry and had not eaten his breakfast as last night it rained so hard and his lamp went out andcould not catch the american frogs on the pond that taste like chickens for his supper with his mother and two other siblings who are very hungry too and there are no more bananas and potatoes in their farm which did not yield a good harvest of rice as the cost of fertilizer has gone more than twice their price last month and they have nothing to spray to kill the army worms

and the clerk asks if they have no chickens and there is none as all died
because of bird flu that came too early this year

and he was too angry because his aunt would not give them a little rice
or at least let them borrow for the meantime that they have no work
because the municipality is laying off all the casual employees that dig
the ditch along the muddy road

and so he threatened his aunt as he was so hungry and he took the chupa of
rice and a cup of mongo beans and a piece of salted fish for home

and so he is arrested today not just for grave threats but also for theft

he is the thief
that hunger and anger have successfully molded before our very eyes
that know no pity no compassion, and we shall now ask:

what is the verdict your honor? is he guilty as charged?