Last Christmas, my little sister asked for a North Face fleece and Ugg boots.
8 Christmases ago, Mom lost her job.
This Christmas? My grandfather had a stroke.
And my little brother was doing a current events project
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Violence escalates in Darfur
Hurricane leaves thousands homeless
Refugees cross borders with nowhere else to go.
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Look at these people
Look at these poor people.
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Wake up every morning, turn on my TV
Just to get a look at those less fortunate than me.
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Supervisor comes around, I switch off that NSFW
Only to have him see me looking at CNN and the NYT
He joins me in sympathy
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Look at these people
Look at these poor fucking people
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Don’t know if you’ve ever looked at porn at work
I only check the news, or at least porn masquerading as such
I don’t think I’ve ever masturbated this much
Cause looking at poor souls concentrated gives me a rush
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Euthanasia, health stimulus, post traumatic war zombies
Youth in Asia sweating over my sister’s Abercrombie
My mother’s still gainfully unemployed
My Grandpa had a stroke and still paid for his medical bills in blood
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Look at these people
Look at these poor fucking people
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Thank god I can feel good when I put a yellow rubber band on my wrist
It’s like I can buy solutions with my problem set
And as long as all my blood goes toward self-satisfaction
I don’t feel guilty about blood of others, I don’t need to take action
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Poverty, poverty, POVERTY PORN!
Towelheads getting bombed
I’ll just read them a psalm
Chinks and blacks with AIDS
So they don’t need mine
Oh poor minorities of the world, I bemoan ya
But your poverty and suffering gives me a boner
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Yes, we can give you all the press coverage you need
But that doesn’t mean you’re more important than us winning Nobel Peace
Yes we can! And Yes we did! Unless there’s still things to be done … uh I mean, that is
I was too busy shaking hands, and shaking my dick, to care about your elderly, your poor, your sick.
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So yellow people, brown people, red people too
Quit acting like we’ve never helped you
It’s not easy to use oil for lube
But somebody’s gotta do it.
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Look at these poor people
Look at these poor fucking people.
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This arose out of a discussion we had at Word! The line, “look at these poor fucking people” should be done in a voice a la Kai Huang. This was Round 1 for me at Brown’s first competitive slam. I don’t know that it was a particularly well done, or politically pertinent piece. Most of the satisfaction came from seeing the reactions of other Word! members who know that this is not my usual style. Shrug. Twas fun.
Grow or die…
