Alien.

That’s all it takes.
Say it enough times—
with enough pride,
with enough certainty,
say it like it’s harmless—
and you start to believe it.
You convince yourself some people
don’t belong here.
That some lives weigh less.
That some suffering is acceptable.
And soon,
you forget they were ever people to begin with.

This is where it begins.
Not with camps.
Not with walls.
With words—
small, familiar, deadly.
Words that divide.
Words that erase.
Words that strip humanity away
layer by layer,
until you look at a person
and only see a problem.

And what happens next?
We dress it up.
We call it safety.
We call it policy.
We call it normal.

But let’s not pretend.

Alligator Alcatraz is not a policy.
It’s not a technicality.
It’s not safety.
It’s a concentration camp.
Built by people who learned nothing
from the blood their ancestors drowned in.

And I am from Germany.
I know this pattern.
I know how fast words become walls.
How quickly division becomes destruction.
How easily neighbors become strangers,
become threats,
become numbers.

We screamed it into history books—
Never again.
We tattooed it across generations.
We carved it into memorials.
We taught it in classrooms.
We promised.

But promises mean nothing
if we look away now.

It never starts with gas chambers.
It starts with small lines—
borders,
walls,
categories.
It starts with us and them.
When fear speaks louder.
When division feels safer than empathy.
When language poisons the foundation
before anyone notices.
It starts
when people feel so distant,
so different,
that hurting them feels justified.

And I’ll say it plainly—
You cannot be neutral while this happens.
You either fight—
or you help them build the fences.

Because it always ends the same way—
with camps,
with cages,
with bodies counted in hindsight,
and the world pretending
no one saw it coming.

But we do see it coming.
We see it now.
And if we refuse to speak,
if we refuse to fight—

history isn’t repeating itself.
We are repeating it.

We are not the same.
Look to your wrists,
Look to your ankles,
If what you search for are manacles.
You who claim I wear chains,
Who seek to shackle my spouse
Because you refuse to embrace your existence.
I am not bound,
For I am freedom.
And, in that way,
I grant you the same thing.

What is hunted for?
For who is searched for?
What is sought?

From nature: knowledge - compassion.

From the cosmos: companions - patience.

From the savagery which birthed civility;
From the meek,
I made strong.

I who go on.

I choose to pass-on,
To divide my belongings to those most deserving.
I who will work with others,
And in that way - do for them.
But never by force,
Through any medium & by any method
Of which that takes shape & form.

For even space is occupied,
There is both foreground & background.
That which is visible
And that which is elusive.

Like vapor from water forming clouds.
Like gaseous vents expelling
What can not be seen, but felt.

All is & all is connected.

They speak of absence & inaction -
Yet, 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩,
¹ Such things do not exist.
Like imbalance,
These are merely perspectives.

Part one
Caesar cries. An anguish riven home
By news that through the city has been spread
Of Varus and his legions who now lie dead
In far off Gaul. Those men they stare
With sightless eyes. Yearning souls bereft of home.
Poor, ****** souls; yet once the pride of Rome.

How, might you ask, those eagles lost and on that mound
In sacrifice laid out before the sacred Oak?
There, where Wotan took the spear and spoke
Foretelling and demanding ****** slaughter.
Who was it listened, then with cruel, deliberate treachery found
‘Midst Teutorburg, that frenzied, ****** killing ground?

Where Ash and Oak, where Beech and Thorn
Loom from the mist which lingers there.
Where shadowed places, dark and cold
Hide sphagnum bog; the wolf, the bear
Which pad and snuffle through the threatening gloom.
Fool Varus listening to advice
Gave up his men for sacrifice.

Arminius, the Roman name they gave him.
Taken hostage when a child.
Taught Roman ways, imbued the culture.
Disciplined life, not growing wild,
Why though was it no one saw
His worship still of Wotan, Lord of Frenzy, and of War.

This the man who Varus sponsored,
This the man, his friend, his guide.
He knew the tribesmen, spoke their language,
Cherusci by birth, by pride.
Arminius, whom the Romans fostered.
Arminius, he was why they died.

—————

Teutorburger Wald
(Part Two)

Now that Oak, that shattered Oak;
Lightning struck, it ancient stands
With branches blood stained, ground now littered;
Iron rusted that once glittered,
Lethal weapons cast aside,
And bones, bleached bones, of those who died.

From Vetera, march away,
Not thinking of their fate that day.
Proud columns, eagles high, they leave;
(Unseen the loom the Parcae weave.)
The Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, all
Destined by spear and axe to fall.

They march ‘neath Ash and ‘neath the Oak,
‘Neath Beech, through tangled Thorn.
And splash a muddied, puddled trail,
A trail that’s not been worn.
By chanted cadence they keep step
These men all Roman sworn.

For Varus has received the news
Of tribal rebels to his North.
Arminius, questioned for his views,
Suggests a detour, then to sally forth.
And so, with Cherusci their guide
The legions march. Not knowing that their friend has lied.

—————

Teutorburger Wald
(Part Three)

Nighttime now doth through darkening woodland creep.
The bear and wolf unsheathe sharp claw.
While those in ambush take their turn to sleep
And from cruel sky the unrelenting rain doth pour.
The Romans, unaware, in camp they curse and try
To keep their slingshots and their bowstrings dry.

This while Varus tosses, uneasy in the night,
Kept awake by screaming echoes from his past?
Does Arminius going missing mean there’s going to be a fight?
And will the coming morning be his last?
Who knows the fate of man, or men.
Have omina been ignored? If so why, and when.

And now ‘tween wood and bog marsh, over heathland
March those legions, eagles high;
Cadence calling, stumbling, splashing,
Rain, it pours from lowering sky.
Heavens rumble, lightning flickers.
Spears are launched, and thus men die.

Closely formed, penned in tight,
No room to ******, no room to fight.
The writhing wounded, *****, blood;
Trampled entrails and the mud.
Thor’s rumbling thunder, drenching rain;
Lightning flashing then the pain.

Beneath locked shields they curse, the dying;
Contorted, Romans, screaming, crying.
Hurtling spears, the butcher’s list
Writ large in terror, Wotan’s fist.
And Mjolnir, loved, caressed by Thor,
Beloved of Aesir, God of War.

Deprived of bow, the use of sling;
Constrained twixt hillside and a marshy bog;
Unfocused and unable thus to bring
To bear their usual clarity of pressure, it’s just fog - a fog
Of mindless terror; which is why they scream.
And for Arminius this, a culmination of his dream.

And so in frenzied lust it ends, the killing;
Vengeful hatred why they fought.
The tribes involved - Arminius willing -,
Cherusci, Chatti, Marsi, they all sought
From ambush and by spear and axe
To end the hated Roman’s rule, the hated Roman’s tax.

—————
Teutorburger Wald
(Part four) German vengeance

And thus in Wotan’s sacred grove
In wicker baskets freshly wove,
Sullen, proud but anguished men
Are jeered at, taunted, howled at, then
Disbelieving of the savage ire
Die shrieking, screaming, in the fire.

This while warriors roar their boast;
To Odin, Frey and Njord make toast;
And those surrendered by their chiefs:
Now naked, Kneeling, dull of eye;
Rank on rank, axes swinging;
Rank on rank the legions die.

Then, Varus has been found, the cry.
His severed head, it’s held up high.
The tribesmen gloat, they gather round
The spot where Varus, dead, was found.
The body though, to rot  it’s kicked aside,
Deceived, defeated, fated thus his suicide?

—————

Now green grasses grow there where the slain
Once, muddied, bloodied, lay forlorn.
Whispers soft the gentle rain
On Ash, on Beech on Oak on Thorn.
Three legions once stood side by side,
This tranquil glade was where they died.

Not just a fluid,
I am ink — the druid,
Shaping your ideas in a blink.
In depth of papers, I sink.

Not just a physical thing,
An end to your thoughts — I bring.
Not made to drink,
I am the almighty ink.

I flow on the paper,
With your thoughts — I caper.
Like the roots of a tree,
Even the history is written with me.

Not just a black fluid,
From the sac of a squid.
Not made to drink,
I am the almighty ink.

When one withholds their perspective,
This is the most sour grape.
That is like wine gone bad,
Caustic & acidic.
Destructive to the natural flow
Of the great amphoras.

They call them crocodile tears
When animals muddy the waters
By disturbing silt or dirt
And thereby obscuring/obstructing
What is otherwise a clear view.
As like pouring wine into a cup of water.