Cold as ICE
I don’t speak in bullets, I talk with a twang,
My accent thick like black locust roots.
You measure my worth in fingerprints,
I’m a songbird in a wired suit.
See me boarding the downtown train,
A work visa tucked inside my coat.
They check it every other stop –
I’m a casefile stuck in their rancid throat.
They prowl with badges, not with care,
To check if we are documented here.
A mother’s arms became a crime.
Another child separated, terrified.
I’m an alien, I’m an illegal alien,
One of a hundred thousand caged.
I’m an alien, I’m an illegal alien,
My skin color they criminalize.
Home is where the heart is, but mine’s on trial,
Beaten behind bulletproof glass.
It takes a good egg to kneel at the flag –
I choke as they revoke my past.
Jaime Alanís climbed toward the sun,
His hands still smelled of earth and home.
The agents laughed as medics came –
One less number for their toll.
One hundred thousand caged,
One hundred thousand filed,
One hundred thousand shades,
Peeled from America’s pasty skin.
Six-hour notice, a shackled flight:
No flag, no rights, no lawyer to fight.
The judge asked ‘Really?’ The ICE man grinned,
‘We’ve got quotas to meet by morning light.’
A dream deferred beneath cold steel bars,
No succours come from distant stars.
We fade to oblivion, silent and scarred,
Countless souls lost behind prison walls.
I’m an alien, I’m an illegal alien,
One of a hundred thousand caged.
I’m an alien, I’m an illegal alien,
My skin color they criminalize.
Another by Skendong: Now a President could shoot you & never face a Judge