Poetry

M. B. M. photo

By

Norberto Franco Cisneros

Do We Need To Digest More Lies?

Mix the colors white, black, brown, tan, yellow and red

Modern America is born, E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one)

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

We are all immigrants, except the Native Americans

who throve millennia before the Euro-Caucasian stepped on these shores

WE, through the generations, after the fiasco of stealing these lands from the Natives,

have all contributed to making this country great

The preamble to the Constitution begins with We the people…

it says nothing about We the bigots, the white supremacists, the elite class,

the corporate right to dictate to Congress their agenda to amass more money,

or for representatives to accept unlawful bribes from the wealthy for personal favors,

or build immoral walls

Lest Americans forget, America was created by people longing to be free

from enslavement and oppression, monarchies and dictatorships,

or being ruled by 72 year olds acting like spoiled, impetuous brats

Immigrants owe this nation many things

among them are honesty, truth and loyalty

but we the dissenters fight with truth on our side to resist the rollback of our human rights

and absconding with our nation’s treasure by the nefarious few

We have a righteous legacy to preserve and pass on to our children

and their children and their children’s children, ad infinitum

Our Constitution states exactly what this nation stands for and is worth defending

and what the principles the Bill of Rights guarantee

Then along comes a fool from T.V. who loses by three million votes

but is still installed by some archaic policy by his Caucasian cohorts;

then he proceeds to dismantle the social advancements and progress in people’s rights

showing preference to the Caucasian sect of the country (nothing American about that)

His party blatantly approves his bias looking the other way as the charlatan stumbles daily

They bow their heads in obsequious shame, but smirk

All they care is they have their man in office protecting their power and ethnicity

Most countries would be destroyed from the inside by such arrogance

but we are Americans fighting with truth on our side,

truth defeats illegal schemes in the end,

Facts overwhelm lies and liars who peddle them

This time factually and hopefully forever.

What Is It I Don’t Get

Am I missing something?

What is it I don’t get?

I don’t think it’s that complicated

Just do the math

Stupid people in office,

Stupid decisions made

Stupidity inflicted on people

Stupidity affects every cell of the social and body politic

Wealthy people are happy because they get the lion’s share of taxes

Working people, regular people get dreams and lies

Wealthy can afford medical insurance

The working man and his family die without it

Young men and women lose limbs in war and millions die

trying to save Democracy, but America’s wars are really for profit

and so kids of the wealthy can get deferments from serving their country

to live the American Dream in comfort knowing their progeny were out of harms way

but the working man’s family must sacrifice life and limb for their opulent lifestyle

Businesses make a lot of money

and create many billionaires

some who get to be 300 pounds of unbridled sexual lust

and live in gilded skyscrapers

And on and on it goes

What are we, the drones, missing?

What is it we, don’t get?

Think about it, it’s not that complicated, is it?

Norberto Franco Cisneros

My poems have been published in the following publications: Indiana University Journal Chiricu; Avocet Review (Avocet Press); Snow Jewel (Grey Sparrow Press); Ilumen (Mouthfeel Press/ Sam’s Dot Publishing) and several others, including e-zines, Black Petals, Ruhatish and have been a Featured Poet in Poetry Soup