Who is the poet of the poor?
It was a poor man, William Blake
Who wrote of orphan, soldier, whore
And chimneysweeper boys who break
Their lungs when they are hardly ten
Or twelve, and barely fill the box
They’re buried in by older men.
They’re gone. No sigh, as if the pox

Had sailed them to a cloud. 
The clock ticks for the poor. They need
To eat and steal and hang. The shroud
Becomes their evening gown, since greed
Enslaves them to the screaming streets.
We need you, William Blake, to sing
A siren, pop our ears. Wrath heats
Our globe of forlorn beauty. Bring

Reason into dead eyes. We die,
Little black boy, little white boy.
Our poverty permits no joy.
No sunflower lights a noon-dead sky.
You say, ‘I’ve no sun time to see.
You dropped me, black stone in the sea.
I cry breakfast! Milk, eggs, toast!
I am the chimneysweeper’s ghost.’