Demanded in Custody

Desperate times call for desperate measures;

Live destitute suffering my guilty pleasures.

Pleasures to mask the unspeakable fact

That the odds against us forever are stacked.

 

Victims of justice;

Great beacon it’s not,

For justice can only rot

When it’s traded and bought.

Crime now just another

Way to tax our poor brothers;

Scream out for your mothers –

Under fines you’ll be smothered.

 

Hardship breeds what hardship reaps,

And punishes poverty, children weep;

Weeping for a world where they’ll soon be crime –

The prisons are built, for the poor and benign.

 

Quotas to achieve;

Private prisons to fill –

No thought for us, just pass that bill;

Profit from imprisonment as hope you kill.

Crime now has targets;

Must catch more, try your hardest,

But when pressured to arrest,

Find those poor they detest.

 

Catastrophic conjunction of catasterous lords

And austerity measures stabbing wallets like swords;

We will fail to keep pace as they race at us, chase –

Let the riots commence as we embrace our disgrace.

 

Stand up and defend

What your masters will end;

Look them dead in their face

As to gallows you’re paced.

Stand tall, accused

Of a system abused;

A generation entombed,

By grand design doomed.