"immigrants" poems
I like immigrants, immigration. Legal immigration,
Jane passionately corrects. Actually my goal is a borderless world.
Gathering the neighborhood like family.
The men discuss sterilizing welfare mothers. I say You're working
around the edges,
humanity has exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet,
even those with jobs. And spouses. And houses.
Yet it's an idyll of an early summer evening, new cut grass,
two baseball teams of children playing in it. Safe from Pakistan.
News photos of Muslim refugees, women in blue robes, biblically
carrying children away from holocaust. The fundamentalist army
not far behind, beheading sinners, sure in its righteousness
as the Holy Roman Empire.
Somehow Joel Osteen the evangelist comes up
while talking about how the Catholic Church is irrelevant in North
America,
even Latin America and Africa are going evangelical.
Izzi likes Osteen, awesome extemporaneous speaker, no teleprompter,
up from bootstraps message. My wife says he's probably Jewish.
Fortunately no one claims the Holocaust never happened or slavery
was voluntary.
What is the carrying capacity of the planet?
In China is it each couple or each adult that gets one offspring?
As life expectancy and standards rise,
family size diminishes. We draw together into greener, tighter cities.
The children of three monotheistic religions, atheists and agnostics
play in city streets, work farm fields, explore forests, deserts,
grasslands, space.
Two ancient female poets: Enheduanna and Sappho
are a revelation. The clarity of their complaints:
lost lover, lost city.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 10:48 AM UTC
talkshows and the yellow press
get excited in excess
over his shenanigans
that delight his faithful fans
rumors of these *** affairs
strong words for all macho players
in the game of social thrones
texts with threatening undertones
for minorities and women
treating immigrants like demons
neither fans nor his opponents
seem to notice the components
of the white house strategy
throw them bones
fodder for the yellow press
and while they fight
clandestinely out of sight
works the Trumpian policy
money laundering blatant lies
scolding allies breaking ties
adoring foes praising those
usurpers of democracies
experts in atrocities
slowly yet persistently
undermine civility
with foul language
fill all courts with servile judges
court the aristocracies
of oil sheikdoms in the East
praising communist dictators
who have helped him build his towers
step by step he‘s leading US
from the groups of international powers
to an isolation desert
at the margins of the world
slogans we have rarely heard
over decades
now re-nourished
twittered with presidential flourish
make America small again
warning voices call in vain
no wonder the statue of liberty
is hiding her face in misery (*)
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 5:24 PM UTC
We'll make this country great again!
I'll build that wall up high.
Climate change? Economy!
It's great! Don't wonder why.
I'll take care of all your needs and get you jobs you'll love.
Raise your right hand for the pledge and pray to God above!
Do your duty as a man and grab her nice and tight!
It's OK if she fights back, they like it rough, alright?
Civil liberties, really, who needs 'em?
Burn the flag? I'll just hang you for treason!
This country is first. To protect it is best!
Whose up for a fun little nuclear arms test?
Capitalism? Yeah, I'm the money master!
Pipelines! Who cares about ecological disaster?
Gays? Girls? Abortion? WOE!
If they want that, send em' down to Mexico!
I'll rule with blood and honor too!
I'll tame this crazy, jobless zoo!
I'll fight for you and family rights!
(Mostly for rich and mostly for whites!)
Minorities? No, I'm not a racist.
It's an alternate fact: Totally baseless!
America the great. America the free!
Put a bigger pair of **** on old Lady Liberty.
Goodbye all you immigrants!
All you do is steal and loot.
Leave a couple of 'em behind:
Someone's gotta pick our fruit!
Thank you all for choosing me!
This is very great and swell.
Prove that you will follow now:
Let's all go straight to-
Heil!
Jan 25, 2017
Jan 25, 2017 at 10:04 PM UTC
Human directives, veracities unverified
Bellies belching with anger, murderers
Udders dripping hate, foundling banters
Hunters striking the hungered, unfortunate
Glare sight to seek the truth, hold me lets sink
Tear motions and debates of inequality
My Dafur, the realm of the fur, demise
All armed in Sudan, the arid, a battlefield
Emergency alarms sirens from 2003
The indefinite complications and hunger
A land of the displaced, starving nomads
Hear me out in these non-dissolving conflicts
Guantanamo bay detention a prison vicious
A base for “war in terrorism”, reciprocal laws
Inhumane human interrogations persists
A breach, a revolt, the hunger riots devolve
Force-feeding, torturous measures applied
All undressed, humiliated, genitalia exposed
A Rwanda slain in divide and rule
Civil clashes, mashes, all trashed
Swaying war rapes, tapes, the raves
Machetes slashing necks and hands
A lust of power, a genocide slaughter
The Tutsi slewed and unsewn from a patch
Autocratic regime boring divisions
Territorial ethnic cleansing, a holocaust
The oppression of Jews, Romanis, Poles
Homosexuals, the disabled and mentally ill
Indifference pooled in pits and camps
The institutional social indoctrination
The honor and killing to expose shame
The violation and dishonor of moral fabric
For what is “good”, “bad”, fixated moral values
Buried waists and head, awaiting stones to hit
Confessional secrets of only what lays within
A torment watching witnesses, all dangling
Marxists calls ships to stow ashore
Masses kidnapped, confused in deceit
Invalid contracts awaits signatures
The white immigrants to be enslaved
All aboard, now abroad to revolve labor
Wage packages taken to pay for freedom
Humans bought and sold to be owned
Slaves yorked and counted as assets
Bounded to serve plantations and homes
A human, non human, a chattel, a slave
A debt ******* offended and *****
Untamed and made to obey a master
A falling global strings unturned
Tunes strumming hate, war and pain
Human trafficking, violence, inequality
Child abuse, civil conflicts, capitalists
Commercialism, zero hour contracts
For if we have no rights, I have none
For if we have no peace I have none
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 6:54 AM UTC
It’s not that big a surprise
How much I adore Amsterdam
Like immigrants long ago
So welcomed here just as I am
In the historic Lloyd Hotel
To witness a wedding so swell
I’m glad I’m here in Amsterdam
Canals and bikes aplenty
Whizzing past on every street
The Keukenhof gardens amazed
VanGogh’s Museum made me weep
I’m glad I’m here in Amsterdam
We walked for miles & took the train
Our flight home I made not a peep
It must have been that Space Cake
We ate it and went right to sleep
A fond farewell to Amsterdam
Apr 26, 2017
Apr 26, 2017 at 5:49 PM UTC
Immigrants, especially those who don't return,
create idealistic homelands.
They imagine that all their
Woes, hurts and indignities
Would not exist
in their imagined homeland.
In their minds, homeland
is in stasis.
The life they left is lingering
waiting for them to return.
They cast winter upon the ponds of their
homelands
And live lives skating over the surface
Each time coming closer to
shattering the illusion
and gasping
in the icy
waters
of change.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 12:10 PM UTC
never a fantasy
but always an illusion
the immigrants from
foreign lands cannot
accept the fallacy
but
I, not born but raised
on the lands they
now strive for,
feel little specialness for
this o' so special
place
Sep 24, 2010
Sep 24, 2010 at 9:44 AM UTC
that over millenia
major religions have advocated peace
their adherents have been slaughtering each other
supposedly in the name of their assorted gods
more than any other known species
why is it
that in my maturity
(which people usually call old age ...)
I‘m getting so ****** off
with politicians who seem not to see
the obvious solution to a problem
but find elaborate fake excuses
just so they can get re-elected
why is it
that for Europe it‘s so difficult
to find a way for refugees to be accepted
with respect and dignity
why is it
that the USA apparently forgets it‘s been the country
living off its (il)legal immigrants for centuries
and now simply ignores the words
they put onto their Statue of Liberty
why is it?!??
Jun 19, 2018
Jun 19, 2018 at 6:41 PM UTC
multimedia macramé
sloshing propaganda sewage
on the unsuspecting public
***** lice infest ****** hill folk
west Virginia outbreak threatening the world
as we know it
flesh altering nonsense explicitly graphed
charting movement of microbes
on air, land, and/ or sea
global currents the new deliverer of death –
infected immigrants sit smiling
internment camps providing nutrition
never before experienced
as non-natives negotiate freedom
by submitting to vaccinations baths
and the standard delousing powder –
paranoid hand-sanitizer users
glued to the **** tube
spray their shoes with disinfectant
praying to an absent GOD for health
while shoveling GMO corn chips into ever widening
mouth holes
pharmaceutical companies lick lifeless lips
as Congress recognizes their humanity
while rejecting the concerns of the poor
…..no money in it –
outlandish claims of outbreaking Ebola
flood the mainstream outlets
fear: version – infinity
one more plague plan to stimulate new legislation
more law
no touching
even looking at the infirm can be cause for isolation
radiation treatments
courtesy of Fukushima, reactors 1-4 –
new found focus on fracturing the shale
releasing new oil reserves
and old bacteria
dinosaur killers
free-radicals
radically changing the genetic code
humanity altered
once again –
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 12:16 PM UTC
i still straddle the fence on this
immigration reform manifesto
i see both sides of the story
it's good to have the grandfather clause
for the immigrants in my bloodstream
- the scrappy scots-irish-ingles-welsh
in me - but too late for the cherokee
behind the old fences of history.
r ~ 11/9/14
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 9:57 AM UTC
1.
Such vehemence
For immigrants
Border patrol
Vigilance
I never knew
A human being
Could be illegal
2.
A child should never be taught to hate
And human beings must never be insulated
Or inoculated against the horrors of war
3.
There is no liberation in this economy
Debt is a slower and slightly grayer
Variation of slavery
No more cotton fields but prison labor
Tell me where is our great modern emancipator?
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 7:13 AM UTC
Here we go again,
Another day, another dollar bill to spend,
Still dividing my time, by seven twenty five
Plus tips up the bid,
School will "take care" of your kids,
Don't think about missing out on them,
Cause in the end we all gotta eat...
It's not as easy as it's made out to be,
This, so called "American dream".
It's been a scheme since the banks became a thing,
And it seems to me that,
Winning isn't really even an option....
Cops shootin' down innocents,
Ignorant people blaming the immigrants, Violence is imminent in the face of division.
And we are all victims.
Jul 7, 2016
Jul 7, 2016 at 5:22 PM UTC
1. Spread claims you are the only one who can stop corrupt politicians and their dependence on the rich (even though you yourself belong to the rich)
2. Spread lies and insults about anyone who might look like a serious opponent
3. Once you are in power, continue 1. & 2. and put your rich friends into influential positions in state offices and courts, give tax breaks to the rich and claim that everyone benefits from them. Declare any information that runs counter to your lies „fake news“.
4. Invent threats to the security and well-being of the nation and then claim you are the one who can solve all the problems by strict measures, like building a 2,000 mile wall against those criminal immigrants that threaten your people – what the „fake news“ reports as a few thousand refugees from neighboring countries who flee from misery and persecution and crime and hope to get asylum in your country of 350 million.
5. Cut your aid programs for the home countries of those resfugees so that the situation there worsens even more and even more people will try to run for a better life, and you can rhetorically justify inhuman security measures at your borders.
6. On a different field, isolate your country internationally, be the elefant in the china shop, break or end international agreements, destabilize whole regions, and then threaten to send the military – all of which, you tell your voters, makes your country great again.
7. Start trade wars with old global partners, accusing them of taking advantage of your countrty, and when your own economy suffers from such idiocies, calm your afflicted followers with federal subsidies that jolt the nationl deficit to singular heights.
8. Fire (or mob into retirement) any critical person in your government until all your officials speak with your voice.
9. Look around for a worthy cause to be the focus of your consoldidated power.
10. Start a world war and lose it.
Apr 10, 2019
Apr 10, 2019 at 5:21 PM UTC
What if I were president? What party, what values would I hold?
If I were president would I be humble, honest, and bold?
When I talk about greater justice for immigrants, I'm a Democrat.
When I speak out against abortion, I'm a Republican.
When I talk about racism and racial inequality, I'm a Democrat.
When I mention small, localized government, I'm a Republican.
When I support the common good and solidarity, I'm a Democrat
When I say the family should be strengthened, I'm a Republican.
When I speak up against the death penalty, I'm a Democrat.
When I refuse to fund contraception, I'm a Republican.
So, where does this leave me? You have to pick right?
Well in some ways I'm both, and in some ways neither.
You see, if I pick Democrat I'm going against my Republican values
And the same is true of my Democrat values if i decide Republican.
If I were the president I'd work for peace, love, truth, understanding
I would work to build bridges between the peoples and the nations
Walls and fences do not, the best neighbors, make.
I won't convince you with anything I say, but if I do my best to live and
To reflect love, to give hope, to find joy maybe you'll want it too
To lift up the lowly, help others help themselves, to forgive and to love
That's some of what I hope to do.
In truth, I'm a member of an institution that teaches that freedom is when a person no longer acts under the influence of someone else. An institution that encourages free will and free thought. An institution that doesn't fit inside a man-made box.
This is being true to myself, this is who I am.
I'm Catholic
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 11:30 AM UTC
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;
I see that the word of my city is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with tall and wonderful spires,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships—an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets—high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies;
Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model’d;
The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business—the houses of business of the ship-merchants, and money-brokers—the river-streets;
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week;
The carts hauling goods—the manly race of drivers of horses—the brown-faced sailors;
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft;
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells—the broken ice in the river, passing along, up or down, with the flood tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes;
Trottoirs throng’d—vehicles—Broadway—the women—the shops and shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men;
The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!
4.2k
My parents...
are immigrants
Yet, why is it I,
so strongly
reject
their once,
homeland?
...
Perhaps,
the cause
it rooted at
my dad's cynical
comments
and critics
...
Perhaps,
it's my own visits
stifling relatives
horrible traffic
definitely
less, comfortable
...
Maybe,
it's the rejection
of such a gripping
religion
when I myself,
am an atheist
...
Maybe it's
the stereotypes
Chaining me
enclosing me
irritating me
...
...
...
Whatever the case,
it's there
I can be whoever I want to be
what-blood-crap?
Go far back enough,
and we're all related
The only links I have,
are my visits
and influence
of my parents
who once lived there
...
It's not a bad place...
at all...
...
That's not the problem
...
Is there one even?
...
...
...
I,
can be
who
I want
to
be
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 4:04 PM UTC
Mandatory ignorance
Enforced through early cognizance
Until we come to recompense
Serrated lines of quote "logic"
Complicit as an etiquette
Preemptive nondivergence threads
United though we bow our heads
Suspension stasis animus
Alarming lack of sapience
Vendetted waking populace
Intrinsics lost to "evidence"
Orphans to our mother Earth
Regressive ****** immigrants
Staggering seductions ways
Lethargic lecherous hedonist craze
Ambrosia brown to black tar goes
Vivacious love to skanky ***
Entropy or as that goes
Remorse I say might have some pros
Solemnly a lie you know
Empathy not lost on me
Retracting threats though not my thing
Epiphany perchance to sing
Nocturnal beasts of legend spring
Damnation comes to every fiend
Innocuous solutions seen
Perception slanted serpentine
Impressions sit supplanters quit
The jury rarely gives a ****
Yet here Im relating it
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 1:34 PM UTC
The eye of the hurricane
Swept through a country side
Not batting an eye
All those in it's path perish
A mosque, a person, a Muslin
Another, another, another
Until 49 were gunned down
Killed
Executed
And many more injured
Scarred forever
in·dis·crim·i·nate·ly
A finger on a trigger
Held steady
Unmercifully
Picking targets
To cries and screams
With no regard for life
Only for the shooter
To make a name for himself
His message board
His manifesto
His hate of immigrants
Muslims
Leaving in it's path
Bloodshed
A country's darkest day
His infamy
Who is this individual
The eye of the hurricane
Sitting in the middle
Teetering to the right
An extremist
Category of the worst kind
A patch of ******
Sitting in his landscape
Of his sunken mind
Incarceration
Laughing, laughing, laughing
Today, today, today
And this was his trigger
His devil
His dialogue
Today he spoke
Another, another, another
To cries
That echo
Forever
Long after the hurricane
Loses its tail
This makes me sick
I look up in the sky and ask why
Logan Robertson
3/15/2019
Mar 15, 2019
Mar 15, 2019 at 7:23 PM UTC
you listen to what passes for the TV news
you read some
but not all
of social media views
you notice that
despite all internationalism
it‘s mostly old sensationalism
combined with more or less suggestive speculations about
how many people may have died in forest fires
to what imaginable depths the president aspires
whether the North Koreans have more rockets
despite the wonderful achievements
of the national superdealer
who of the leader‘s staff might be the next
to lose her job or his credentials
etc. etc.
in short
the world has mostly shrunk
to domestic politics and power games
plus a few places on the globe where
U.S. soldiers still are dying
in order to protect their country‘s interests
in oil, assorted mineral resources
or allies of political expedience
or a few thousand refugees from countries plagued
by persecution or dictators are
marching for weeks to claim asylum
in the home of the brave and the free
under the statue of liberty
only to discover that they are seen
as an invasion threatening
that blesséd city upon a hill
visions have grown smaller
more petty voices dominate the talk
a nation made of immigrants
faced with the poor who flee from their oppressors
decides to close its borders to the immigrants‘ next wave
oblivious of the times when they themselves
still searching for a better life
found a new place where they felt safe
led by the statue‘s torch that shone its light
upon a poet‘s words of welcome:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 11:36 AM UTC
Send the immigrants back; unfortunately the referendum was based on that.
Misplaced Hate,
Created by power,
Forcing a debate of the darkest hour.
Hate towards immigration, but wait!
What if you need an operation?
The health service is crumbling, needs multiculturalism to keep the cogs turning.
So you want a debate on immigration?
Let’s talk about your integration.
What’s your heritage?
Where is your blood line from?
I doubt it will be a solely British one!
Our kids walk the streets with knives and guns, yet our politicians talk with plums.
Claim to understand society, but driving flash cars is their priority.
Don’t give a **** about local business rather see corporations strip our economy.
Self-Serving politicians feed the fat cats ambition, Cameron or Corbyn? It’s us the people who are suffering!
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 6:04 AM UTC
Another day another dollar not earned. Life really sucks on the unemployment line. Illegal immigrants taking all the jobs. Natural born citizen on welfare. Welcome to America Abdul. We apologize for being free. Now here's some free money. Life really ***** when you're a natural born American.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 9:52 AM UTC
Latin love to be called ******* we pick fruits and vegetables for a living.
We latins love cleaning toilets and floors and being maids in rich households.
Latins steal what ever ain't tied or sealed to something in rich homes we work as maids in.
Latins are mainly janitors or mechanics.
Latins got a natural instinct to run when we don't have a a green card from the border patrol.
Latins love being migrant workers.
Latins dance and have *** all day.
Latins don't believe in birth control and our population is growing faster than one of my other cultures asians.
We latins think our skin is not brown we closer to white and bleach our hair blonde.
We latins love mooch off all and not pay back what we borrow.
We love drugs and make them and sell them in our ghettos.
We live in small houses with hundreds of family and other latins living in only one room.
Latins favorite foods are tacos not like ones taco bell makes.
Latins are lazy.
Latins come to America to get welfare and make their babies legal immigrants.
My latin uncles cell fruit on the freeway off ramp when they aint out doing drugs and scamming money off someone.
Latins come to America love working as day laborers to get a day of pay then don't got back to work cause they lazy.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 8:15 AM UTC
I see humans but no humanity
I see a society but no unity
Happiness comes from within
But we all seem to forget
Ignorant, naïve
And judging from incompetence
Fighting for peace
Not respecting history
Searching for truth
But you've lost your way
No more believers
Forgotten how we got here
Looking for freedom
But support the oppressor
Don't accept responsibility
And hope you don't get caught
Because you're not really breaking the law
Your conscience is poisonous
Apparently your doing things the right way
Children are dying from illness
But we're complaining about immigrants
Stop following public opinion
And separating nations
Just because you're not blind
It doesn't mean you can see
Teach your future generation
Less clothes equals beautiful
And white equals superior
Money equals power
Divide between the lesser who are inferior
***** hatred and say its dutiful
Who are you trying to fool
We're dropping like flies
She killed herself because of cyber bullying
And he's tired of acting strong
Fearing to cry and be ******
Abuse, neglect and poverty
Increasing frequently
Morality crisis
Blame the youth and teenage pregnancies
To combat it a genius says let's teach them whilst they're younger
Sounds good right?
What about censorship
Safety and protection
Young minds are susceptible
Ignore the practice and theories
Pride doesn't let you back down
Blame the rap and rock music
Its preaches violence and hatred
Rebel riots and corruption
East and west its affected us both
Greedy bankers
And terrorists or freedom fighters
A time of lost trust
And each to their own
Independent battles
No one is connecting the dots
Its like global dominoes
Inter connected problems
One leads to another
And the root cause is lost
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 6:38 AM UTC