What do you know of people

What do you know of people

On the outside

Beyond the realm

Of your existence

Among the open sores

The infection of poverty

The seepage of low life

Rarely seen

From beneath a veil

Of indifference

Draped between

Eden and the world’s end

When a hairsbreadth

Is as impenetrable

A conundrum

As the ironfist

In a velvet glove

Exclusivity is a necessary evil

When the Emperor

Has new clothes

To be seen

Through heavily tinted windows

When every image is a distortion

There are one thousand and one

Chauffeur driven reasons

For the privacy

Of your activities

Eight miles high

Where the air is rarefied

Rinsed clean of impurities

What overview

Is this when nothing

Is ever known of the downside

Save the children is a slogan

Written on the fuselage

Of a Gulfstream

And charity is never all it seems

When reclaimed as a tax break

And redistributed

A few miles offshore

On account

Of the paramount need

For discretion

The appearance of clarity

Is important

Open books

Are only as meaningful

As the words they use

To tell the story

As those left out

Can be rearranged

To tell any tall tale

From heroism

Clear through to terrorism

And beyond.