Auckland - Mua Stickson-Pua

Auckland - Mua Stickson-Pua

Auckland
your streets
are cold.
Auckland
multicultural
multiracial
city of the world.
Beneath
your respectability
a price has been paid.
There
is no housing crisis
unemployment
is not working
and black is not white.

Auckland
hungry people
eat out of rubbish bins
openly.
Auckland
supposed sedated
mental health clients
roam your streets
lost and unloved.

Auckland
a generation
of street people
are no longer
invisible.
Auckland
elderly beggars
leave their stench
of poverty and injustice.
A price has been paid
Auckland
your streets are cold.


(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.