Alien Nation

So much terrible news - the Indian air crash, the attack by Israel on Iran, riots in Ireland. And meantime wars beat on in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Yemen.  This poem, written largely before these events, looks at a country rounding up its immigrants whose status is declared dubious, and who are the latest scapegoat to authoritarian populism, and its cruelty.

Alien Nation

On the way to work, they came:
Took mother and child, no shame;
At the home, workplace and street,
Grab alien immigrant, no defeat;
The alien among us, one to despise:
Why would protestors not arise?
Wanton act, armed thugs come:
It is just too much for some;
But others go, the blessed meek,
To unknown future, very bleak;
Taken away, not to be seen again,
And taken all, not just the men;
Families taken from their home,
Wherever the armed thugs roam;
Yesterday’s news, you may think:
As armed men take them in a blink;
But nothing is new under the sun:
Once swords, now rule of the gun;
Now a great nation, but in the past,
Outsiders in pogroms were downcast;
Always the scapegoat, enemy within:
Trumpets a voice, who claims to win;
As cruelty reigns, no hope is given:
When into darkness, they are driven.