Boat People

Boat people

Out in the sea they are nobody's child.
They belong to no land.
No nation, no homeland.
No one to claim them as their own.
No water to drink, let alone wash their hands.

It is just the vast sea and them,
Dreams parched under the cruel blue sky.
The lure of life and a place to call home,
Nothing but false promises and a big lie.

No they aren't the cast of 'Water-world'
Or of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.
They are people alive and turned into ghosts
By their own governments, once their guardians.

Prey to poverty, persecution and greed,
They are the 'boat-people, cast adrift on the sea.
'Illegal migrants' or 'Ping-pong balls', they are called.
Floating between shores like lost seaweeds.

A stigma for the impoverished nation
Grasping for higher economic growth,
Embracing the consumerist fashion
And the promise of wealth it has brought.

A race they must win,
To accumulate and protect their riches.
No heart for caring,
Let alone a place for sharing.

One death means one less mouth to feed,
One notch up the poverty line.
Let them drift and let them die.
If they are not yours neither are they mine.

They are boat people; they belong to the sea
They are nobody's child; they are not meant to be.