Wednesday, May 2, 2012

a May Day Poem; a day late....


The USA is a stumbling, bungling giant,
cruel and not at all cute,
going about in the world making mischief,
and worse.

Stealing corn in Mexico,
rice in Haiti and the Phillipines,
and all the while happily singing an idiotic song
about freedom and liberty,
while his enormous feet free the dying from their cares
with the gift of freedom-in-death.

I was born here,
educated here,
but I do not belong here.
This is not my home,
but the place of my imprisonment.

I do not belong here,
and I do not belong to it,
the giant enormous and cruel;
I am as much his victim as anyone else.

And every day I brush elbows with people who live under his shadow,
--people who thrash about in the darkness,
and who cannot see how he towers over them,
blotting out the sun;
they are too busy,
thanking god for their freedom,
---because with one voice they all say:
It’s so much better here than in Mexico!

Copyleft MJLovas 2012; all rights reserved, copying for commercial purposes strictly forbidden----distribution for cultural purposes encouraged so long as original authorship is ackowledged

Recommended Reading:  Walden Bello, The Food Wars (Verso, 2009)




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