9. Ode to the Rising Petrol Price
By JH Sayyar
1
O ruthless flame that leaps from silver urn,
Thou spirit of the pump, where coins now burn,
What once was flow for carts and carriage fair,
Now bleeds the purse and chokes the common air.
Thou wert a friend in dawn’s industrious light,
The farmer’s mule, the driver’s morning rite,
But lo! Thy climb is steep as mountain wrath,
And tears not smoke, now trail thy sooted path.
2.
O price, inflated by the greedy hand,
Whose golden tongue no poor man understands,
Each drop, a tyrant toll the masses pay,
While palaces grow fat on workmen’s day
The bus is bare, the motorbikes grow still,
The schoolchild walks the road against his will,
The vendor sighs, his cart no longer moves,
The mother weeps her stove no longer proves.
3
Ye ministers who sip imported cheer,
Thou not hear the cries that flood the year
The common breath is taxed by your decree,
Yet you in armored grace roam fancy-free.
O petrol! Once the pulse of progress bold,
Now wear the crown of famine wrought in gold.
If gods of oil still slumber in their pride,
Let thunder wake them, and let truth preside!
4
Let prices fall like rain on summer dust,
And mend the bond between the just and just.
Till then, dear flame, we suffer thy increase
A pyre of hope, a prayer for our release
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