The New Warsaw Ghetto
The new Warsaw ghetto
on the Texas Mexico
border down the street
on the California border
the Arizona border
Publicly financed
corporately owned
government operated
enclaves of despair
The new Warsaw ghetto
metastasizes
in the not so good ole USA
in detention camps
in cages in isolated
windowless prisons
driven like spikes
into the southern border
In the new Warsaw ghetto
children are torn from
their families
and warehoused
like animals
shivering under
aluminum covers
or left to sleep on
unforgiving streets
In the new Warsaw ghetto
tear gas smothers
and the feds de-mother,
thousands of refugee children
They are red meat
for the haters
for men of means
and for mean men
who follow the fascist
rules of ethnic cleansing
The refugees are brown
and must be kept out
must be kept down
“The country is full” he says
as if it’s a hotel
“No room for you”
even though this is
their land too
their America
They have journeyed
3000 miles
to escape their failed states
a legacy of US interventions
banana republics
dirty wars, exported torture
exploitation and control
They have entered
into a mouth of hatred
a tight sphincter
of hostility
In the new Warsaw ghetto
families disintegrate
disappear
disaparacidos
To the haters I say
Careful…. lest you
become a refugee
of a fire
a flood
a mudslide
a drought
a tsunami
an earthquake
a tornado
a hurricane
a market crash
a massacre
a mortgage
a sinkhole
an eviction
a tyrant
a war
Careful…. lest you
become a refugee
forced to escape
collapsing
port of entries
from which there
is no return
Careful…. lest you
become a refugee
desperate and stuck
on an invented line
stranded
on a slim island of terror
denied
denounced
dehumanized
Careful
we are all
straddling thin
fraying edges
the uncertainty
of madmen
of natural disasters
eminent domains
and rash developments
of Warsaw ghettos
Soon we may all
be on the the move
in search of a refuge
from disintegrating societies
natural catastrophes
and from the paralyzing
devastation
of human love