FATHER, WHEN COMETH BETTER DAYS?

FATHER, WHEN COMETH BETTER DAYS?

We’re a hemorrhaging arthritic nation
We grow lean day in day out
Losing blood pint by pint
Failing to realize we’re a terrible sight.
We stare at our image in a mirror
Calling our figure trim and fit
But we fail to realize this
We’re only running on adrenaline


We beat our chests and cry forever young
Promises of a nation forever strong.
Looking on unperturbed,
As talent washes away in life’s storms.
We watch our educated young
Runoff to drive New York yellow cabs
And others back home cling to straws and crawl like crabs
Wishing they could go drive New York taxi cabs.
In doing so, they could at least pay a tab
Even afford hail a cab.


We kick against brain drain
Calling it the new slave trade
But have we made enough beds here for those lost to drain?
Imagine today, if home they all did come,
Would we be able to offer them a decent way of life?
Driving a yellow cab is an honest way of life
At least in doing so, they can pay rent and live a decent life
What have we done now to forestall this drain?
You sit atop your throne and watch us live like rats
And ask that we wait for a better day.
We pride ourselves on broken down social systems
And non-existent basic human needs


We are continually befuddled with questions
Where’s water?
Where’s electricity?
Where’s education to school the illiterate?
Water, electricity, education and others.
These are indicators of progression or retrogression.
You shout free education
And I ask you in response, where’s the quality in that education
Where are books, teachers and classrooms for that education?
When cometh your much touted rosetta stone of education?
You shout out progression,
Citing unrealistic mentions
I shout back retrogression
And give you numerous examples of arithmetic retrogression


You may call me a critic or an opponent
Go ahead; call me an opposition sympathiser
But I’m just a man in the streets asking for just cover
I’m a boy sleeping rough and looking up to a nation’s father
We wait in earnest to hear from you father
So far, we’ve heard nothing from you father
I still sleep rough and he walks the streets without cover
We shall know them by the fruits of their labour
Your fruits do not augur well father
Go on and do better for our sakes father
After all, you are our father.


Why should I at the sight of you cower?
Are you not here to serve?
Are you not a servant of the people?
Why then do you turn a blind eye to the cries of the people?
Are they not the kingmakers after all?
They stood in line from dusk till dawn
And counted each paper vote by vote
They sat by your side through thick and thin
With sweat scented lit candles permeating the darkness
They convinced the undecided
Why on you they should be decided.
Come morning, the news did break
We made you king, Christmas we did not even celebrate


You preached a new dawn
Yet here we sit looking like pawns
We wake each morn, our faces forlorn
Asking is this a new norm?
Cost of basic services skyrocket by the day
The unemployed troll the land in circles day by day
In search of honest work that pays
We all grow older day by day
You sit and admire the youth idle in decay
You sit and watch a generation waste away
While singing songs of better days
Please father, when cometh better days?
Slowly time peels away our youth today
We can not keep idling day by day
Father please show us the way
For we fail to understand your varied ways