My Poetry: With The Sugar Came The Taxes

I

With the sugar came the taxes

Before we were happy

With the sourness of our lives,

Now we measure our worth

By what we don't have.

With the taxes came the coin

Need more for pots and cane

And things you cannot see

Like fines for living today

On ancestral land.

And with the coin came desire

For man’s sin and greed

More to hoard and trade,

Then when we have nothing

Left to sell, we’ll barter

Our freedom for some more.

II

Fancy cloth cut into fashion fad

Make our rags look outrageous

In their design and savagery,

Why have I not

While those across the river have?

Men impose taxes 

From hill-top mansion 

Built on land they stole 

With sword and pen.

Poor forced to down tools

To work on oppressor's plans

Our seeded hands once toiled

Field for food or hunted game

Grazed cattle on parent’s lands

Spares shared in brotherly feasts

Now we aspire to hollow excesses.

Inspired after reading the section in 'Dreams From My Father' where Barack Obama discusses his African tribe, the Luo