UP™ Front with Jeff Newton

I try not to judge, to keep an open mind, But when I hear "Those People," I can't help but cringe. The phrase has been uttered so many times, It leaves a bitter taste, my tolerance singed. So here's a poem about "Those People," you see, The ones so casually dismissed and blamed: They're mothers and fathers, just like you and me, Working hard, their dignity unclaimed. They're not inadequate, lazy, or weak, But facing challenges, day after day. With limited jobs and support they seek, To give their children a better way. They're humans, not cases to be managed and filed, Their lives are more than forms and red tape. They're communities fractured, families beguiled, By a system that leaves them to scrape. Before you utter that phrase so unkind, Take a moment to walk in their shoes. You might find that the labels you had in mind, Are nothing but harmful, false views. For "Those People" are us, they're you and they're me, They...

  In the quiet corners of a forgotten neighborhood, Where asphalt memories crumble underfoot, Lives a boy, nameless yet resilient, Wrapped in the tattered cloak of innocence. He doesn’t know the weight of his generational struggle, Only that school is a maze of whispered taunts, His backpack, a burden of dreams and empty pockets, And hunger gnaws at the edges of his existence. Bullies prowl like shadows, watching for weakness, Their laughter echoing through the hallways, But he stands tall, a sapling in a storm, Unaware that courage blooms from the cracked soil. His mother, a silent hero with calloused hands, Weaves love into every frayed thread of their story, Two jobs, two worlds—the sun and the moon, Her sacrifice, a lullaby sung to the stars. She leaves before dawn, kisses him on the forehead, And he wakes to an empty room, a cardboard kingdom, Legos? No, but yet his imagination knows no bounds, He builds castles from flattened boxes and hope. Each crease, a drawbridge to...