Brave Child Of Immigrants
© Surazeus
2025 06 23

If I can kick the ball into the net
before our empire collapses from greed
then I will leap abyss of honesty
to test my mettle with assertive faith
before I tumble from heavenly wall
and pick fruit in strawberry fields forever.

When gang of men who wear no uniforms,
hiding their faces with black bandit masks,
swarm the strawberry fields of industry
to arrest the hard-working immigrants
and deport them all from the Promised Land,
I film their illegal activity.

Sweat dripping from my brow in blazing sun,
I sing the blues with aching heart of hope
to call the sweet chariot of salvation
which never swoops from faceless clouds of light,
so I meet the devil at the crossroads
and sell my soul so I can play guitar.

Strumming old battered guitar of my heart,
I sing the blues on cold Chicago streets
to howl with wolf voice of the wilderness,
expressing anguish of the immigrant
who flees their homeland overrun by gangs
to seek salvation in the Promised Land.

Because I work my fingers to the bone,
constructing car engines in factories,
I grow new secret pair of angel wings
I try to hide beneath my leather coat
till passion to ascend erupts from rage
with urgency of faith to fight the power.

Linking arms with comrades on picket lines,
I strike against dangerous working conditions
and call for higher wages with respect
so I can afford to feed my family
and send my kids to college of desire
so they can buy new house and car at last.

Bearing my hungry daughter on my back,
I trudge rugged trail of the Darien Gap,
struggling through stark wilderness of pain
where Orpheus leads mute souls of the dead
across the waste land to the Promised Land
where I work as janitor at hotels.

Assembling fragments of my freedom quest
in documentary on this bitter life,
I crack jokes on stage at the smoky bar
about life as brave child of immigrants
who pick fruit in the fields of California
while I perform my television show.

surazeus.blogspot.com/2025/06/…

Orpheus plays soccer on the field of dreams while his mother picks apples in the orchard of dancing skeletons.

#Poetry #Poem #Pastoral #Necropastoral #MetaModernism #Transrealism #NewSublimity #NewRomanticism #AmericanDream #Cinemism #Existentialism #Surrealism #NegativeCapability #NewGnosticism #MetaRealism #NewTranscendentalism #Astarism