An Appeal to the Haves, a poem by Gobinda Biswas

An Appeal to the Haves

Gobinda Biswas

We are the common people of the society
You call us Plebeians with acute contempt,
We know you are the great Patricians
Like the almighty God, you are all powerful,
You can do whatever you like anytime.
Sometime you call us the proletariats,
We are penniless and can’t buy a burnt-bread
For our hungry babies or dying parents,
While you are the happiest men on earth
With all the money in your hands.
Millions of hungry people cry all the time,
They are starved for a morsel of rice
Or, a bit of crumb on the Golgotha,
They cannot walk steadily on the path,
They stagger in agony with a begging bowl.
The children are completely unfed, unclad and unbathed,
They are always crying for food and care,
Nay, they are dying like puppies and kittens,
While their mothers are looking like skeletons
Without the heavenly flow of elixir for them.
The young parents lament in heart rending agony
For their helplessness for children and grey hairs,
It is not the result of their previous sins,
It is the result of the exploitation by the rich,
Which has been going on since prehistoric time.