THE PRICE OF TEA IN CHINA

Poem by Mara Grace
I’m finally interested in history
To understand why this has happened to me
Who were the people that made it to be
That I’m numbered and now tagged with R.F.I.D.?
Raised on food stamps and government cheese
Made growing up in poverty flow with such ease
Why can’t we ever seem to get ahead?
Our grandchildren inherit our debt when we’re dead
Going to school to earn a degree
Turns out to be no such guarantee
Tired from working all day, “What’s on TV?”
I forgot what I wanted to grow up to be…
It doesn’t take too long for us to see
Social Security breeding complacency
Unemployed with no savings and no health insurance
Does not give me very much reassurance
Then just when I thought that I’d had enough
Life decided to get just a little more tough
One day somebody with far less than I
Resorted to crime, all he knew to get by
The inhumanity, the injustice caused me to ask “Why?”
Uncle Sam finally took too big a slice of his pie!
I refuse to wait for impending riots in the streets
I’m determined to do something before history repeats
So I read the instructions, scrutinized the fine print
Scoured statute and code, followed from clue to hint
Information deciphered too urgent to forestall
And like it or not it affects us all
The pursuit of happiness kept forever at bay
By such burdensome taxes which most of us pay
It’s a story of surplus in the land of the plenty
How central banking led the dollar to be worth a penny
It’s a tale of extensive political and corporate greed
Of great mathematicians who can’t calculate how much they need
The wealth of the many concentrated in the hands of the few
The melting pot of America turning into a stew
Born on this land, inherently sovereign and free
But Homeland Security says I need permission to leave
Arm yourself with knowledge, you’ll need it later
Don’t just stand by and be a spectator
It’s important we have your cooperation
If we’re to rebuild a respectable nation