Best Immigrants Poems
This poem was written after I took a tour of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Wyoming, the site of Custer's Last Stand.
It was the year eighteen sixty-eight.
The U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty.
The Black Hills were to be closed to white settlements,
Preserved for the Lakota Indians
Forever, so long as the buffalo roamed.
'Forever' lasted less than eight years.
The eastern railroads needed meat for their track crews,
So professional hunters followed the rails westward.
Men like 'Buffalo Bill' made their living
Killing the buffalo for meat, hides, and sport.
It was the year eighteen seventy-two.
America celebrated its centennial.
Gold was discovered in the Black Hills,
And people in their thousands rushed to the west
Seeking fortunes and living space.
Most of them were immigrants to America
Fleeing depression and prejudice,
And ready to ignore the letter of the treaty law.
Towns quickly sprung up along the immigrant trails.
Towns like Deadwood - an illegal encampment
In the midst of Indian land.
People like Calamity Jane - an illegal immigrant.
Wild Bill Hickok - another illegal.
In the year eighteen seventy-six
The U.S. government sent the army to remove the Indians
From 'their land'.
Almost half of Custer's troops were immigrants themselves
From seventeen different countries
And two marked down as 'unknown'.
You already know the basic story.
The Lakota won the battle
But lost the war and their sacred Black Hills.
General Custer became a legend,
The Indian culture was 'civilized,
And U.S. history moved on.
History is full of ironies.
Custer, a hero for the North side
Winning battles against slavery in the Civil War,
Won greater fame by dying in a war to enslave the Lakota.
What's the lesson we should learn from all this?
Each of us standing here today is an 'illegal immigrant'.
We need to remember.
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
Shadows of leaves against migrants stripped of bark
Children hidden against a darkened sky
A cup of river foaming at the mouth
Suited men and women laced swirl about with noxious airs
Walk blindly into an imaginary sun longtime set
Sink into the plastic remnants of bottles drank
The dew on their skin stings like acid spilt
Breathing particles drawn with charcoal pencils lit
And I think to myself what a Trumped up World
08/26/2018
I came first but you did not write me in history
You made me mute, invisible, estranged
From my own heredity and great memory
With the slivering tongue arranged
Upon my brain. You brought me back, later
Across the wet desert of the Atlantic
From coffle to cotton, without choice in the matter
So I would believe I was a lunatic.
For only lunatics have no sense of place or name
Make roads they cannot walk, make garments
That cannot cover the stereotypes of shame.
I proved genius in better moral arguments
Did not let me take your life for all your cruelty.
Here is one more for your book, from islands
To continents I made them all the same
You left them blood and gold from your hands
Dripping, I followed you with a different name
Look again, who is the immigrant? Who do you fool?
Let me not deny your stealth, this separation
Of the vine from the root, by dividing you rule
But before you set us at variance, a suggestion
What is the DNA of all your wealth, the legacy
Of pirates and slaves? There is no beggar's hand
Here, just agents to recoup with undue courtesy
The treasures stolen from love and native land
There has been such a backlash against immigrants
that I decided I would put out a thought.
Do we remember the immigrants
Who for our country fought?
Starting with our revolution
when this country was born in 1776.
There were immigrants who fought by our side
Von Steuben, Kosciuszko, and Pulaski were among the mix.
What have they done since then you ask,
to keep our country great ?
There are those who battled oppression with us
even up to the present date.
I do not know of particulars in 1812
or even in WW I.
But if immigrants didn't fight for us
They joined the 'Melting Pot' that eventually made us one.
WW II is another chapter
of immigrant oppression we let go awry.
How long could we have fought that war
Had the Nisei not gone to Italy?
I have had great kindness in my life
by two different immigrant cultures shown.
One was Puerto Rican; the other Chinese
who accepted me as one of their own.
It was more than kindness.
It was a true caring and love in their way.
One gave me the confidence to move ahead in life
The other became my family.
Without the strength of these diverse immigrants in my life
I don't know where I might have gone.
I would certainly not be here writing
but somewhere else...lost and alone.
So when I hear people loudly rail
about an "Immigrant Crisis of State",
Remember, We all came from roots elsewhere
This is what makes our country Great!
At the national picket of the unhappy
I see large crooked coins
Hoisted like placards above the irate crowd.
On the first face, I see immigrants & owls embossed,
And on the second, snakes & neighbors.
It's the coin they toss
To divine the wellspring of troubles
That every day beset this broken nation.
It turns at every toss to land first face up
When crime is up and jobs down.
The oracle, I know, holds the second face in reserve
To deploy on that day to come
When the homeland is rid of strange hairs and noses
But crime is still up and about
And jobs still down and out.
Yes, when immigrants are gone it'll be neighbors in the dock
Taking blame for all national ills.
History will stand witness
As the whips and stones that now descend on immigrants
To break their bones and spirit
Give way to tanks and missiles
Sent forth to break bone and spirit
Across the trampled borders
To the east, west, and south
Previously crossed by immigrants
But now crossed by armies.
Wisdom beckons to the clueless right
But her call they will not heed.
With glee they hasten to their likes across the border,
Carrying their precious coins in tow
With which they purchase glib excuses
To explain away all national failure.
How little they know that when their deed is done
And all immigrants gone
We'll be back to war, war, war
As of yore,
When the homeland had not strange hairs and noses
To take away from neighbors the blame for national ills.
For Mother-----Frances Demopoulos
The USA is a
nation of immigrants
It has been our strength
since the beginning
of this wonderful country
Even my mother came
from Greece when
she was only 5
and could only speak Greek
She was ridiculed by
the other students in
her class as she learned English
Immigrants have contributed
so much to this land
while building it
Why can't we give them
the respect that they deserve?
My grandfather brought his
family here for a better life
as so many
still do today
Made it in at 10 A.M.
to
see
immigrants who want
to become
working Americans
Only a lowly college assistant
yet I have
my share of students
They come from Israel, Bangladesh, Russia, the D.R. and other places
Use a few phrases in Russian, Spanish, Mandarin
to help them relax
Use the computer
to aid them in their
studies
The day rolls on
When no one show up
I write poetry
and post it on the web
I suppose I
am a little lazy
But not as lazy as some
Despite the difficulties
I feel I am
"making a difference"
I'm basically pro - union
but my union
isn't helping me out too much
Well, after a few cups of green tea
the day ends
HOPE ALL MY STUDENTS PASS
Yes, this is a bad joke
Yes, this is a sad comedy
What an irony
What a parody
Smile and smirk, so you won’t be poked
What a hilarious lie! It is a travesty
Immigrants don’t eat pets
They eat beef, chicken, and pork
Like you and me. All bets
Are off. Let’s be serious and dark
Migrant workers are looking for jobs
What a spoiled brat candidate! Unnecessary stabs
And sound bites, this time, will not work
Migrants are people too
Yes, I’m talking to you
Who believe in fake news, half-truths and lies
All human lives matter in front of God. All lives
Are special. Migrants are the poor children
Of the Almighty. Give them food and haven
If your ultimate goal is to reach Heaven
It’s about time, the system puts the felon
In his place. Nobody wants a convicted liar
A criminal with a deferred sentence at the border
It’s sad to see a grumpy old con artist
On stage. There’s no place for a divider, a racist
In this day and age, in today’s political scene
How strange, unbelievable and obscene
To see a liar tremble before the Truth
God is Great. It’s time to pray and to play the lute
Immigrants do not eat pets. They are like you and I
They eat chicken, meat and pork, and also enjoy apple pie
It’s time for the judge to send the felon
Where the fellow belongs, in jail, in prison.
Copyright © 10 September 2024, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of numerous books of poetry.
In my country, gangs of fiends own the night.
In my country, we lived broken lives of torment.
My family fled with little but our naked terror.
Bleeding and blistered, our feet carried us hundreds of miles.
But I always had my familia.
We migrated in trucks, never sure
we could trust coyotes.
We roamed scorching desert, never
sure we would find food or water.
Sometimes we waited until nightfall, hidden from view.
We were nocturnal prey on winding dirt roads,
never sure if we would be killed.
But I always had my familia.
Our bellies choking from hunger,
our desolate depletion, the final forces
delivering us to the border.
So distant my country, so remote in this
unearthly place where we were captured by
armed strangers, where we were divided by
strangers.
Today, I no longer have my familia.
This day is glass shattering and the shards
cut me open like a skinned rat.
Today I am that bawling baby paralyzed
by panic.
Today I am that shrieking child trembling
in terror.
Today I am that adolescent crowded
in a cage.
Today I am that tortured toddler
crying himself to sleep.
Published: Dissident Voice 11/8/20
A new immigrant now comes:
I see him on our streets,
I see him on the factory floor,
I see him at an old friend's desk--
How I would that there he would stop!
But robots they are: neither modesty nor empathy
they know.
He doesn't look like us
And won't speak our language;
Our culture he regards as sickness or weakness;
Fun he scorns and labors all day
And so is a favorite of the lords and gods
That make and own the business world.
Against him closed borders are no defense,
And from him scarce a job is secure--
Except, of course, in politics and poetry.
From those worlds our solace will come--
The muscle of vision and that of words
By which one day to claw back our world.
It's best, though, that it never comes to this:
If robots truly have come of age
Their father's house they should leave alone
And their own go build on faraway Mars.
Be they warned that "the meek shall inherit
the earth"
And that meekness ever is on our side
I am sitting here
in the ESL lab where
the great mass of immigrants
need help because they are
new to our shores
Immigrants work hard
And when I see them I am reminded
of the Led Zeppelin song "The Immigrants Song"
which helped develop my consciousness
Lo, these many years ago
Americans are a mixture of flavors:
Salty, spicy, sweet.
Whatever you like,
your taste we meet.
Descendants of countries
far and wide.
Wherever they once lived
they came here to hide.
Hiding from violence and hate,
from poverty and war,
immigrants seeking a new fate.
They were black, brown and white,
short and tall,
fat and slim,
we welcomed them all.
English and Spanish,
French and Chinese,
Irish and Scots,
send them all, please.
We’ll eat hot dogs and hamburgers
and bar-b-que,
goulash and gumbo and Irish stew.
We’ll dance and sing
and play guitars.
We'll watch movies
made by stars.
We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving and July the fourth,
and remember Martin Luther King
by marching back and forth.
Politics and the law are favorite topics.
Waving flags and carrying signs,
Parades and protests
Are a sign of the times.
True TV and talk shows abound.
Choose what you like.
It’s here to be found.
America, the land of the free,
Started by people who bled for you and me.
By: Carole O’Terry Duet; copyright 6/19/2020 (L); “All rights reserved”
To rent a room, do you know how much I pay
Without social security and bank statement
It is more than I earn for cutting grass and hay
More than can build a new apartment
For this one is broken down
The cockroaches crawl night and day
The ceiling too is hanging down
The floor has worn to callous clay
In summer there is no air, and winter no heat
I have no right, he can report me
If a human request, because of the children, repeat
He tells me to go back to my country
Did he ever confessed he brought me here, did he
He tell them there's nothing back there
For all the wealth so familiar here, has a history
After the traffic my country is bare
I left when room in summer to keep out of the rain
Another one in winter that gave
My wife a cough and fever with her rheumatic pain
We are like modern slave
Hated and abused, but no one will do the jobs we do
Who have no voice and have no vote
Who the shadowy officials stalk and stalk, and out of view
We pay to run, they collect and gloat.
The somber white cats,
Creeping up the sharp blue fence-
Their blood thirst- for wealth.
I have to be patient, and not too concerned
About the things I can’t manage
If some of the stones I left lying unturned
For this I cannot be disparaged
The island is so overcrowded and small
New comers arrive by the boats
They want to steal space, so the natives can fall
Into the sea full of ghosts
But what was Mayflower by modern esteem?
No politics here, just a fact:
A boat full of immigrants, led by a team
Of Jesus freaks with legal act
To establish an ownership far, far away
They claimed it “the promised land”
How can you deny others doing the same?
For jobs you won't do they're godsend.