I read the great poets
in several languages,
moved by many,
transported by a few.
I think about Byron,
died at Missalongi
in the siege of the Greeks
by the Ottomans.
World War I poets
died in the trenches,
words mostly forgotten
that didn’t endure.
The internet spreads,
poetry dwindles.
since few poets
inspire.
The performing arts
grow obsolete
without emags
to give them life.
Paintings by noted artists
are still prized
to hang ignored
on private walls.
Poetry can’t be displayed
in ornate frames
and has no value
for avid collectors.
Poets do not lead
the fight for freedom,
preoccupied
with mundane matters.
Autocracy spreads
funded by the rich,
eroding the promise
of my troubled land.
The hope of the future
for our suffering people
melts away
from global warming.
Crumbling sidewalks contrast
with resplendent buildings
in the gentrifying city
of abandoned parks,
no longer maintained
as the rich go elsewhere
for recreation.
Nature perseveres
as long as our planet exists
to recover the earth
until we all perish,
weeds sprouting
through cracked pavements
in the ongoing struggle
that affects us all
so we barely notice
concrete is fleeting.
The rich men want our land
and we cannot pay our rent
because they keep raising the price,
so the police come
and drive us off
the land of our fathers.
They put us in a filthy tent camp
where men come in the night
and tell us they will take us
to a better life
in the United States.
We have no choice
since our children sicken,
so we pay all we have,
join a group,
leave Venezuela
for the incredible journey
of thousands of miles
that will take months.
My wife and oldest daughter
were raped and killed in Columbia.
I could not protect them,
a burden I’ll never get over.
When we slept in Guatemala
my second oldest daughter
was taken from us in the night
and I could not find her.
Somehow I kept my youngest
son and daughter with me
as we went through Mexico.
By that time we were exhausted,
hungry all the time, sick to our stomachs
and we reached the United States,
where they put my children in cages,
me in a camp with barbed wire.
I know they don’t want us,
but we are like other people
who believe that America
will allow a dream for my children.
I am not a criminal,
drug dealer, or terrorist.
I’ll take any kind of job,
learn English
to provide for my children.
I look upon the ills
disturbing my troubled land
that seems crazier than ever before,
people videoing putting their cats
into the oven
because an ex-president said:
‘They’re eating their cats and dogs’.
It has to be the internet
allowing instant communication,
unlimited access to many
who don’t have enough to do
and follow conspiracies,
each one nuttier than the last,
yet they may not be dumber
than their peers in the past,
just more visible
on social media.
I could spend 24/7
listing dangers to my country,
foreign and domestic,
but cannot conclude
if the imminent threat
from our enemies
is more dangerous
than during the cold war,
when many of us feared,
nuclear annihilation.
Another homeless man
straggles the street,
eyes flashing:
‘Mentally ill. Mentally ill.’
A torn, stained, yellow poncho
covers the scars
of his battered upper body,
lower body in three layers
of tattered pants
concealing wounds
leaking bodily fluids
through porous cloth
lost in his own horizon
subtracted
from humanity.
Levels of Resistance is an unpublished poetry collection that raises the voices of the silent and the oppressed, who should be heard: 'Buffalo Bill Defunct', 'Tormented Land', 'Oppression', 'Past or Present', 'Disappeared'.