USA Green Card
They told you America is Heaven—
and you believed,
as though Paradise were sold on paper,
as though salvation were stamped in ink.
But I tell you: a lie repeated
is more dangerous than a sword.
The Green Card—
a talisman of the desperate,
a relic worshiped by those
who cannot see the rot beneath the marble.
More than seven hundred thousand sleep on its streets,
more than a million souls drown in powders and needles.
This is the empire you kill yourselves to enter.
Once, perhaps, power clothed America—
now its aura is smoke,
its spirit spoiled,
its rulers jesters in a theatre of war.
They enrich the rich, suffocate the poor,
and crown themselves with the word democracy.
Yet their people shiver, homeless, jobless,
beneath neon lights and hollow slogans.
You dream of New York’s towers,
but you will wake on its sidewalks.
You abandon the red soil of Africa,
a true home, a true inheritance,
to chase shadows across oceans.
What folly is this,
to trade bread for dust,
to mistake the colour green for hope?
Karma waits.
An empire without discipline collapses
as surely as vapour dissolves in the morning air.
But you will not listen.
Fools do not seek wisdom,
they only offer opinions.
So I warn you, Africans, seekers of false heavens:
the Green Card is no covenant.
It is a deception,
a chain gilded in promises.
Heaven cannot be bought.
It is built where you stand,
or nowhere at all.
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a
Premium Membership.
