GENTRICIDE

More beautiful people than me
need my home
Their beautiful smiles
Are hungry to dine
and show-off their new ‘find’ – my home
Of course they are deserving
They work harder than I do
Travel more and know all kinds of recipes
and places unfamiliar to me
They wear the right clothes
and never, never say the wrong thing
They can take a drink
and a joke
and even a recreational drug or two
They know just how much to transgress
without transgressing the law of transgression
They laugh-off, disguise and disdain
the excellent education they received
sometimes dumbing down to sound less powerful
And their beautiful teeth
were carefully nurtured and guided
by the truth dentist from an early age
That dentist was no terrifying
ogre from another planet
as he was to me and mine
But a friend, even a member of the family

As now they need my home so badly
(No other part of town will do)
Because my part of town has become desirable
I shouldn’t argue, but just disappear
Leaving no trace
As if I’d never
Lived and struggled, and studied
and loved and won and lost and hoped and died here
for seven years, mostly alone
I should clear-up scrupulously when I leave
Just in case any trace of me
should jerk their conscience,
make them think
or spoil their long, long party

Once I complained
It seemed so unfair
That just when I thought
I might make it
I’d get kicked back down to the bottom rung
where I began here seven years ago
I complained but
it was pointed out to me
that it’s “just business”
Like selling cigarettes
Sending kids up chimneys
Prostitution, seling smack or arms dealing
But now I’ve seen the light
‘ Business’ makes everything right,
righteous
right down to the most terrible things.

It makes me kind of schizo-
knowing for sure that I must stay
and at the same time knowing for sure that I must go
If I had the choice
Of course I’d carry on
trying to build a life
to climb out of a whole with my bare talents
I can see the life I have in mind
and miraculously
lately it has started to come true
But they can’t wait any longer
they need my home now
no other will do
NO, it makes me truly schizo-
and that’s the very poison
which weakens me and mine
slows and wearies our progress
our attempts to escape,
frankly disables us
with an invisible
unmentionable disease

That violent glass ceiling
kicking and spitting
judging and crushing
always with a fault-less, guiltless smile
lubricated with oily irony
a code I’ll never crack
will soon be my roof
under which they will live.

©June 2000 Paul O'Kane

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