Pestilence war FAMINE death
The four horsemen of the apocalypse
Of which Americans know nothing
Except what movies novels
Imagination might create
Think of hunger since the ‘sixties
Due to the passage of programs
For food security we can’t identify
With the Dust Bowl Okies
Who suffered as their farms
Were whisked up by the wind
Outside the camps of World War II
Films of Dutch children desperately
Scraping garbage can bottoms
Licking their hands when the Nazis
Took all food for themselves
Now we import pictures of hunger
Typically African starvation
Skin on bone children
Bellies swollen from parasites
Here our homeless in dumpsters
Quite adequately feed
On half-consumed meals
Behind posh restaurants not
Where I’d dine but they’re
Getting their fill
Americans diet but don’t
Experience hunger
Our malnutrition
Too much salt sugar fat
Makes us obese
Our poor can’t afford
Sound nutritional eating
The unhealthiest most fattening
Foods are the cheapest
Those of us better off got
Overweight from bad choices
No exercise the hunger we feel
Is not four-horsemen apocalyptic
Not the grinding ache of an African
Child who will gnaw at a stick
Till no bark remains
We’re just used to a pint
Of Ben & Jerry’s Haagen Daz
Every Friday night
An extra large pizza
All to ourselves
We might feel driven
That’s not hunger poopsy
It might be withdrawal
In our paunch we’ve got plenty
To keep us going if they lock us away
Once only the rich were fat
The rest of us worked it off
Or never got enough
Today’s megaly-morbid obese
For whom holes in houses are punched
Normal doors too small
When those ponderous bodies
Must be hauled to a hospital
These sickly sorts lay abed
All day sheets for clothes
Relatives ready to clean
Their inevitable messes
Codependents keep
Bringing them food
Joined in the most macabre
Death wish scenario prosperity bore
Blame genetics hormones the like
Even the hormonally fat
In Auschwitz wasted away
c. J.S.Manista, 2015
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