Tents & Temples (shelter)
The social structures we create,
clear boundaries delineate.
The rich from poor will insulate
in regions of prime real estate.
144
We’re safe behind a stately gate.
Steel bars the craftsmen lanceolate.
With rich motifs they foliate:
in copper they electroplate.
148
Stone columns on a stylobate
accent façades we crenellate.
High towers we can fenestrate
and ramparts we machicolate.
152
Our in-ground pools we chlorinate.
Twee gardens caretakers curate.
Our worries just evaporate
as guests, in awe, felicitate.
156
Our riches help us levitate,
to heights where we luxuriate
in rooms of marble and glazed slate
that chandeliers irradiate.
160
The unwelcome can’t infiltrate
these lavish chateaus Latinate
where decorators floriate
and fresh brewed coffees percolate.
164
These palaces instantiate
the wealth that we accumulate.
A life of lords we simulate.
No way will we die intestate.
168
Our money we can fecundate:
to own the best, ours to dictate.
This role we will not abdicate.
Our comforts we’ll not abnegate.
172
On holidays we aviate
to beaches where we estivate.
Lounge in the sun with our comate.
Relax so we don’t herniate.
176
But those who can’t participate
towards middle class will gravitate.
To drab suburbs we’ll relocate:
submissively assimilate.
180
We dutifully domesticate
and fence disputes we arbitrate;
to mortgages capitulate
and on consumer goods fixate.
184
Devotedly we renovate.
Appliances predominate.
In heated spas we macerate
and hope we’ll never liquidate.
188
In slums, the poorer populate;
exposed to rents that strangulate.
Cold flats where heat don’t radiate
and bleak nights make breath condensate.
192
We ask landlords to fumigate:
the vermin to exterminate.
In pantries roaches nauseate
and filthy rats intimidate.
196
From noise the walls reverberate.
The neighbours’ fights reiterate.
The airless hallways suffocate.
Five door locks we must situate.
200
Still worse, we that itinerate;
our shelters we’ve had to vacate.
Soup kitchens graciously donate
the hot meals we ingurgitate.
204
Most druggies cannot motivate
enough to rehabilitate.
Drunks find it hard to moderate
a fondness to inebriate.
208
And on the streets gangs demarcate,
select turfs and consolidate.
New members we initiate.
Trespassers we assassinate.
212