One Poem Only is a daily poetry podcast offering a quiet moment with a single poem—read aloud, without analysis or noise.

Dystopian Dirges (United Healthcare)

Amelia Wicker

Rubbish or treasure

Who is to measure

The value of a life cast aside?

Nickeled and dimed

Without reason or rhyme

Delayed and denied a day’s breath

Who lives and who dies?

Who’s the lord of the flies?

This dystopian surmise too grim to speak

False gods of profit and power

Claiming souls by the hour

Growing strong from the plight of the weak

No penance for crimes

68,000 times

New dirges ring with each blink of an eye

Mercenary marionettes lie

Deaf to the bereft cries

Ascension ripe for the fall after pride

When a carpenter by trade

Fierce and tender will say

“I was thirsty, you gave me no drink”

“But sir, we never met”

How conveniently they forget

They met Jesus in the least of all these

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• @poison.or.grapes_poetry on Instagram

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