I’ve Been Mixing With The Wrong People

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Those soft, self-assured steps of children
Recently dismounted from their comfort wagons of desire.
Those sweet-smelling parents waltzing down the serried isles
Of desirable goods, premium priced and untouched by austerity’s cruel hand.
Those expectant mothers, and fathers with no trace of anxious fear,
Confident in what is to come, what is to be.
Rain may fall, but no drips can mar their pristine whitewashed clothes,
Can shake their assured grip on all that they possess,
All that they may have half concealed in their bags of superior lineage.
Eyes not watered by excessive pricing; gasps not gasped by outrageous claims
On their worldly wealth, their stockpiled stipends.
O to be numbered in their ranks, to count oneself amongst the rich,
Those unaffected few, those with economic levers to pull
Those shutters down on what is real, what can hurt and what can harm.
So send me off to some exclusive, elaborate school where I can learn
The arts and crafts of wealth, The self-promotion of the self,
The science of entitlement and the preservation of my worldly wealth.
Reserve my place in what comes next what ere may be my final score,
I can waste and while away my time as well as any other,
And with safety net in place, I can fall from the high wire circus act of life
If needs must be, if this is what it takes.
I too can then step lightly through these corridors of life, unaffected, protected 
From the great unwashed unfolding tragedy that I know so little of.    

 ©Keith Murphy