Child hostages locked
in chain link cages
in concrete kennels
unfit for dogs.
Child prisoners still in diapers
wrapped in crinkled space foil
metallic paper blankets
with tear-stained misery and hungry stomachs
fed GMO poison and sedation drugs.
Stolen toddlers labeled
Unaccompanied are standing
on trial representing themselves
in an unknown language.
Uniformed militant captors
aren’t daycare workers,
or dorky summer camp counselors.
They’re psychopathic,
conscience-less prison guards
with hearts immune to the suffering
of pregnant women and children
sleeping huddled on concrete floors
of a re-branded Wal-Mart store.
They even separate the siblings
after taking away the parents
to prevent sobbing brothers and sisters
from holding on to each other
when love for each other is all they have left.
This imperialist country has
orphaned them because they believed in the lie
that America is a sanctuary for the oppressed,
when it’s America that’s the oppressor of the third world.
To be undocumented is to be trafficked and raped
by sanctioned ICE guards hiding behind a hypocrite’s flag.
Demeaned and hunted here in this country club
land of unequal opportunity,
immigrants are criminalized and their children are sold
to adoption agencies the modern form of slavery
of the poorest children in our meat market world.
Refuges running from corruption
who were trying to survive
CIA funded gangs and drug war culture
that this country continually profits from;
they were never orphans
they were not unloved.
Their parents were tricked into signing away
their rights to their own children.
This greedy country that’s been exploiting
the world’s poor and vulnerable
since it’s inception,
pretends: generosity, opportunity and justice
but only for their kind.
They map the world with their Corporate Conquerer names,
their slave owner faces stain all our books, film, media and money.
“Shoot them at the border,” says the smiling blonde DMV employee
“Go back to your own country!” says the grammar butchering bigots, “Speak ‘Merican!”
But it’s 2018 and we, the outsiders, we, the survivors, know what’s true and false,
this home belongs to us, not to murdering Colonialists,
This stolen land is rightfully, karmically, spiritually ours.
We the oppressed, are the People that we should be fighting for.
copyright free images from pixabay.com
Powerful piece. And necessary. Thank you!
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Thank you Issa Dioume. I’m going to read this poem at a protest demonstration in SF.
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