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