The Hope Of Health

Politicians are to nations
what doctors are to patients-
people we consult in times of need
(with politics and media that is all the time
then...  ) and in whom we invest power,
in the hope of health.

The more we see those we entrust ourselves to
mistaking our symptoms for our causes
the more our trust in them ebbs away.

With a doctor this means being condemned
to live out your illness in a state of disgrace
misunderstanding or taboo, being existentially sick.

When politicians mistake a symptom for a cause
it reinforces ghetto walls tightens poverty traps,
and reduces social mobility to media talk and spin.

Politics entrenches an apartheid of  wealth and poverty
that castles and gated communities have always encouraged,
separated by their wealth. Why else have Portcullis* House
next to the Mother of all Parliaments?

 
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*A grating of iron or wooden bars or slats, suspended in the gateway of a fortified place and lowered to block passage.