A child…in a foreign land.
Where we come from—it's all just sand.
Deserted the desert...
but still feeling tethered
to the place that feels
forever home.
Yet—that place
we can no longer roam.
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Left the home land with legislative laws.
As they contained loads of legality flaws.
The colour of my skin cutting at me like a saw.
No jobs, no work, it was my last straw.
Left the land I knew to go and find more.
Knowing that the Foreign Land would have something better in store.
When I moved—I thought my troubles would be soothed.
But found other trouble,
my persistent presence made the locals grumble.
Looked at as an immigrant,
but every day—
a defendant.
"They are stealing our jobs!"you say.
"They are stealing our wives!"you convey.
You never stopped to think—
That just maybe...
we're trying our best?
Yet...
we will always
be seen as less?
At home,
we've got families to feed,
we've got people who are in need.
But what you fail to understand—
We can't help them...
unless we are in the Foreign Land.
from the book’s open cradle,
a rush of color lifted~
soft wings trembling
like thoughts just born,
those delicate immigrants
rising from ink into air.
they gathered in a gentle rabble,
a drifting, shimmering chorus
of saffron, coral,
and moon-washed blue~
each one carrying a quiet story
the pages could no longer hold.
upward they traveled
a migration of light
toward the turquoise sky,
where the wind waited
to welcome their wandering,
to scatter their small miracles
across the wide, listening world.
From the book’s open heart,
a rabble of butterflies rose~
saffron flickers,
cerulean shivers,
petals of pink and ember-gold
fluttering into freedom.
They drifted upward
like loosened dreams,
each wing a watercolor whisper
of places yet imagined~
delicate immigrants
carrying quiet stories
the pages could no longer contain.
Across the turquoise stillness
they traveled,
a bright migration of meaning
stitching color into the sky,
leaving the book glowing behind them
as if every word
had learned to fly.
I immigrated to myself
From the land of brave
Left my old life on the shelf
Gave it a long wave
If you ask me how it goes
In my new sweet home -
Life is cheap here, in flows
Like the brook in Castle Combe
You don’t need a job to fill
A precious time you’ve got
Money comes just by the will
I’m not asking for a lot
Languidly, without fuss
The days and nights go by
Sitting back, I watch the stars
Falling from the sky.
My wife was a legal immigrant to the USA
She waited years to receive the OK
Fired from her job in the USSR
She ate only potatoes for a whole year
Stripped of her citizenship, she lived in constant fear
Came here, got four months of rapidly declining public aid
Took ESL, computer courses, babysat – she was truly self-made
Today she’s a high-level business analyst at Blue Cross
And in our happy home ~ the undisputed boss
So you can define a tree
From a forest if its near
But I cannot make you see
And my words you cannot hear
You destroyed a lilac grove
You’re a beast with no remorse
I don’t share your need to rove
You’re the effect with no cause
Now the Earth is yours forever
Make it flat, cut off the trees
Get your desert back, whatever
It may cost - I pay for this
Doc Tarr and Professor Feather
Offer jobs for naughty boys
Others can enjoy the weather
They may take it as their choice.
America the place
Ice feels immigrants should be erased
Lady Liberty welcome
Constitution says stay
Washington wants to put the immigrants away
Immigrants have a right
It’s turned into a plight
Immigrant’s rights went from bright to dark
Leaving a disgrace mark
They want to live and pursue
What are they to do?
The constitution is the thing
Washington wants the departure sling
America spells opportunity
The taste of prosperity
Immigrants dream of reality
Their America’s tomorrow is a morrow
Immigrants are distinguished
Desires and goals
America in immigrant hate
No appreciate
As Races we should all associate
We all have values and contributions
Individual put in
New beginning
Chance to advance
Immigrants alike
Immigrants tell Ice go fly a kite
Hope in hearts
Needing no depart
America is the immigrant’s stride
They have what it takes to survive
All aboard the bizarre Farage barge..
Unless of course you are from abroad..
.
Narcissist catalyst.. old school fraud..discord twist..
Can't resist.. staging the raging red mist..
Fist of Mob rule tryst does persist..
Depraved raves..insist..craved faves..
Won't save slaves & knaves..
Hellbent they are sent..
To graves under the waves…
Foolish votes for ghoulish gloats..
Seedier media leaders lying..
Defying the dying..
Folks crying..ghastly ghostly boats..
Crude jokes delude..lewd masterstrokes denude..
Corporate rascal castle debacle floats..
On dank murky murderous moats..
Scuffles.. muffles ruffles & kerfuffles
Pokes & provokes just for bank notes..
The ubiquity of inequity
This poem or tome..
Every face…race should be.
Free to roam..
In this place..
We all call home..
Juan tells you he is an immigrant, northern mexico
that he learned to speak english in iowa
and these coupled are the reason
Juan's accent is different
Juan is not mexican
Juan lives in fear of americans
Juan in america is a raghead
a camel jockey, sand
this is not unique to america
the world is filled with such
infidel, hymie, gentile, untouchable
the word hardly matters
the effect is achieved
somewhere in the stratum
there is a lesser being
and while all are not as such
there are more than enough
to keep men such as Juan
ashamed of their heritage
the most segregated hour is 10 a.m.
on sunday morning, those easy pieties
of the church bizarre
mr. jackson sits in front of his mirror
in a prominent section of los angeles
mutilating himself into a white man
sometimes society is so successful
in its emasculation
we become our own honkey
then again, how can we be asked
to give up our
when even god seems to refuse
Phoenix 93
Grandpa Francesco Proia,
from Caserta, Italia,
a clever stowaway
in the bowels of the ship
bringing him to Ellis Island,
Feb. 4, 1905.
Gruff ways,
often snarling a guttural “Huh,”
a lack of English,
never-ending hand gestures,
made me fearful of him.
But awestruck I was
with the romantic notion
of his stowing away.
Bootlegging homemade vino
during Prohibition – another
plus as he captured my imagination as
un farabutto – a scoundrel, a reprobate.
Add in his being a coal mine boss
in Marianna, Pennsylvania,
and I had a genuine hero.
How many other children
claimed such details about their grandpas?
Never telling anyone
of my naïve admiration for him,
family loyalty prevented me
from bragging about him.
Living to just a few days short
of his “hunnert” birthday,
I loved and admired him to the end.
Even when the ship’s manifest
I discovered for La Lorraine
listed him as a passenger
in steerage, not a stowaway.
From marble and granite to steel and glass,
we were discussing Rhina Espaillat’s On the Avenue in class,
was it 1950s or 1980s NYC and were the fifties
the city’s halcyon days or is it now, the 2020s,
the boroughs teeming with immigrants
from the round earth’s imagined corners,
Hasidim and Muslim, Haitian and Russian, as we
Italians and Irish in an earlier era were. Everything will
be ok or not, the recombinations which make
prediction and intuition fortunately hopeless
and each individual an experiment gone well or wrong.
On the avenue God speaks by spewing
toy and clothing stores, breakdancers and ice skaters,
the Brooklyn Navy Yard seen from the Brooklyn Bridge,
the skyline admired when my car broke down on the Triborough Bridge.
The numbers of us overwhelm, there exist powers
overwhelming for the human body and mind.
I don’t mind but I can’t make sense of it.
Gandhi said What you do may not seem important
but it is very important that you do it. By that what is meant?
Linda complained Why does God always have to be a man?
I replied He could be a she but She’s probably really
a Tyrannosaurus rex. I like to be in America!
'Your goose is cooked'
I told Azizi
"My what is what?"
He questioned me
'Your goose is cooked'
softly repeated
Azizi frowned
He looked defeated
I wondered why
he couldn't see
his goose in my oven
of transparency
summer local birds
insects and warms do not cry
no immigrant birds
Equation invasion pilot light;
Substance abuse out of sight;
Bargain donors Delight;
Quantum disturbance;
Humanity really hurting;
Relying on physical denying the spiritual;
Unmanageable
intangible
Spiritually ignorant
Disloyal spiritual immigrant;
Work and toil;
Loosen soil;
Help me Lord;
For I am more solid and spiritual;
Table mound of dirt and clay;
With the breath of God in Me;
Unimaginable
unmanageable
intangible
spiritually ignorant
I am chosen
I am a
Spiritual Immigrant
2/29/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr 2020
They call us illegal
And I know that we are,
It’s a choice that we made
In coming this far.
Through jungles and forests
We travelled on foot
Our hearts in our mouths,
But no choice to stay put.
Murder and rape
Sadness all round
Gasping for air
Afraid to be drowned.
We’re willing to work
As hard as we can
An aversion to toil
Not the reason we ran.
Our lives in your hands
A harbor from strife
A chance to survive
A hope for a life.
CHAMELIONS AND WATERMELONS
One foot forward, pause a sec
Two foot forward, pause and check
Googley green goggles, round and round spies.
Slow reptilian eyes spots garden boy who in great excitement cries.
"deez aaah, aah, what seh in Ingish...?"
The garden boy tried words to distinguish.
Runs right round the yard to Stan.
Stan was his large employer man.
"Meester Stan, deez aaah?", inquired the boy.
Big stan sat in his big chair, and smiled with big joy.
He gave a big thought, pondered a little while
"My dear man, that is a watermelon", said he with a big smile.
The garden boy listened with intrigued intent.
Exclaiming to chamelion in a rough English accent.
"yuu, yuu aaah Wa-tah-meh-lohn!!!"
Beside himself bolted excited over the lawn.
Inside a pet store
Trying to sell watermellons for a few pennies more.
The garden boy tried to explain
But never seemed to understand, that chamelions and watermelons are now the same.
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