Smokey Hill

Rubbish dump playground
Mercury soil scavenger landfill
An occupation adopted for livelihood
Major populace stricken below poverty line

Several humpy-type structures
Stand in the scrubby vegetation
Homes built of bits plastic and wooden
Sheets stacked up to keep elements out

Lungs tar painted black
As coal miners without masks
Dwelling in corrugated iron and plastic
Scrap homes atop a mountain of debris
Living in a landfill closed in 1999
Hearts high as their still alive

This famous landmark of pollution
A mass of decomposed rubbish
Standing 20 compressed meters high
Toxic remains of 50 years of waste

Research dignified poverty online
Images of humans stooping to humiliating lows
To feed starving mouths of children
With disheveled and soot covered faces
Equating to almost half the population

Lungs tar painted black
As coal miners without masks
As cigarettes smoked decades without filters
Living in a landfill closed in 1999
Starving hearts still high as they are alive

This famous landmark of pollution
A mass of decomposed rubbish
Standing twenty compressed meters high
Toxic remains of fifty years of waste

Lungs tar painted black
As coal miners without masks
Dwelling in corrugated iron and plastic
Scrap homes atop a mountain of debris
Living in a landfill closed in 1999
Hearts high as their still alive

Shipping terminal back facing the landfill
Huge tankers waiting to load and unload
Harbor shipping turmoil and hostility
Leaving we offer wishes with sympathy
Please let them out of this cycle of poverty