A Gap in the Wall

Even with her consent, being with your beloved means the gallows, yet
watching your beloved ravaged, you must not raise unbearable outcry,
for we are raising our youth in a stunned moral climate.


You will not escape—here the law's hand is iron-strong,
if your own hand lacks strength. Either endure, or else
retire from life altogether. Live by these rules, if you wish.


Dear authorities, truly nothing good is happening—we cannot fathom
that everyone laughs at the sight of us. Day by day we become
the universally acknowledged clown.
Economic growth and social poverty rise in tandem.


Waiting for zero, finally despairing into tears—
no citizen deserves this. Still,
you cannot blame democracy—here the oppressed are the very source of all power!


Gentle readers, whatever else you do, never trust the bureaucrats—
they are paid precisely to speak with sincerity.
In this degraded society, trust and truth-telling are worth the least.