Photo by Kitty Bantayan
If you can buy some land
surely you can buy some time?
If you have enough money for the lot
surely it won’t mean a lot
to let the lot
in your lot
move out without
a drop of blood?
If you have enough cash
to purchase that land
and land people with cash
in condos of lush;
and employ a lush lot
in businesses that encash,
grand and with brands,
then surely you shouldn’t gnash
your teeth when the lot
of people in your lot–
as poor as sewer rats,
as rotten as rotten rots–
refuse your will
for their shanties to be smashed?
For surely
you wouldn’t die
in a week or in a month,
in a year or even longer
–far longer than that–
if your businesses that encash
and your condos that land
lush people with lands
fail to materialize
before your eyes
as quickly as you would like?
For surely
you cannot die
of hunger
like this lot
of people in your lot
ragged as rats
rotted and rots,
barely human and humane,
living in your land?
For surely
the absence
of splintered bones and homes,
of shattered dreams and hopes
is infinitely more valuable
than cold hard
cash
and
buildings that encash
and condos that land
landed people with lots
and a home for your lot
secure for years with brands,
as grand as grand
can get grand?
If you can buy a title
surely your tail
won’t rattle
if it takes years for the battle
to end without even
a scuffle?
For how can a man
watch his fellowmen
get clobbered and hammered
by the police
like pricey wooden sidings
of encashing commercial buildings?
How can he sleep soundly
when mothers weep loudly
through cold nights
in streets that are
as deathly cruel
as condos are
stylishly cool?
How can a man,
indeed,
be capable of such deed,
just to satisfy a whim
to urgently plant
a residential unit or
a manufacturing plant
on land so soaked in grim?
How can a man do that–
it’s impossible, IMPOSSIBLE!
Unless
he sees the lot
of people in his lot
as nothing but
a nest
of two-legged rats?
So I ask you again,
you proud legal buyers,
you stash of cash stackers,
if you can buy some land
surely you can buy some TIME?
For “time is gold” they say
and these rats their gold
is just that
enough time to pass their stay,
time to play an unwinnable game
time to move out of your way,
finally–oh at long last–
and waste away,
waste away.
