My Middle Class

 

I am Maori Scottish Irish and I live in Aotearoa

Not England, Scotland, Ireland not India

We live in Aotearoa not Samoa or Niue

Don’t get upset by my Native Title to this land

It’s hosted you very well to our detriment in fact

Find a flaw with our generosity

You can always

Pay the bill and leave.

But please don’t just watch us

Fight the system

Reading it in the newspaper

Over eggs and coffee

What you wont read over brunch

Is that this same System

Is going to take out middle class too

Middle class moderates the filthy rich

While it’s working for it

Middle class is articulate to injustice

Organised and efficient

Middle class is the fairest ruler

So the filthy rich find them dull

Often necessary but never an equal

More like a higher order slave

Middle class has to be kept happy

But not too happy

That it can focus on injustice

And do something about it.

Middle class is not a threat

When it’s too comfortable

When it believes

Too much in the newspapers

When it feels privileged

For owning stuff

But middle class

We are the backbone of society

We are the altruists

The philanthropists

We are the educated

The kind, we are the Samurai

A weapon for the poor

Against daylight robbery

Show your sword

Our enemies are already here.

It’s this same system that Maori threaten

With petty tikanga and karakia mumbo-jumbo

Commerce is not interested in our ogaboga

In our appreciation of any other order

We are not praying to a deity to a god

To a belief system that keeps us poor

Trapped in a slow death mortgage

We are talking to the room

About the order beyond money

We middle class are manipulated

By the filthy rich

With half handshake promises

Of getting in at the top

Oh how we know those handshakes

All commerce deals to potential threats

And we middle class are one

Welcome to this new world

If you still don’t believe me

Good for you dream a bit longer

Before the inevitable

Rudely awakens you.

How will the new world look?

 … No insurance pay out

For your earthquaked cliff edge house

Low to no redundancy, scraped back pension

Massive body corporate costs fuel prices up

Boat harder to enjoy at that cost mate

Working harder but with less to show for it

More cancer higher treatment costs

Christmas is a financial avalanche

School Fees. The cost of food my God

Hmmmm move to the Bach low to no overhead

No constant driving and meetings

Great Maori people down at the wharf

Selling fresh fish and good marijuana

My god what are you waiting for…

But while you are waiting how about helping us

Fight those commercial bastards selling us out

For a profit that trickles down to us never

While the rich just get filthier

I am not saying anything is right or wrong

I am just asking you if you know shit

When you smell shit.

TraceyTawhiao(c)2011