Poverty is

A child dreaming of a handful of rice,
Who has to find food for himself.
A girl wishing to go to school,
To feel the laughter with some friends.
A sick mother with no medicine,
But has to save money for her family.
A woman who was famous as a singer
But she was all washed up.
People who are poor as church mice
Having no food to eat.

Poverty is a curse of humanity
Abstracting the poor           from the rich.
Poverty is an aftermath of the French war,
Turning Vietnamese’s lives upside down.
Poverty is people without jobs
Looking forward to becoming workers.
Poverty is people living on the street
Hearing
“Z    O    O    M!” 
         and
     “BEEP!”
From the motorbikes.
Poverty is people breathing Carbon gas
Released by cars from the middle-class.
Poverty is the people working in the sun
Wondering what air conditioning would be like.
Poverty is a fainting child with an empty stomach
So hungry that he could eat a horse.
Poverty is workers shivering
For it’s raining cats and dogs.
Poverty is like a painful prison,
Pulling the panicking poor
                                            from  
                                                a good life.
Poverty is the dream of the poor:
Halve the food people eat.

Everyday goal is to survive,
And each night it’s dinner or dust.
Life is like climbing a mountain.
Some fall to the ground,
Some stand on its edge,
Some reach the summit.

Crushed in despair and depression,
Trapped in a burden of fees,
The poor fear what future brings.
But they keep on fighting,
For they’re full of hope
Of loafing their loved ones.
They fight to rise
Up and above the poverty line.