An Immigrant’s Letter Home: They Say I’m the Problem

Fresh off the boat
Plank splinters sticking in my bottom
Foreign words coating my throat
Accented with spices smuggled in my breath

I am here by mule train and burnt gasoline
Aero plane and broken shoestrings
Paid for everything by commercializing
My entire life into round metal beads
Covered in ghost heads and iconic scenes
I’ve not yet had the chance to see
The way they haunt my pockets

Exchanging, “for an excellent rate,” he says to me
An Uzi armed sentry stamps my history
Of entry in passport holograms
The picture shivers between two sheets of paper
While I wait on a bench to claim a meal voucher waiver
For my wife and two
Because where I come from, that’s just what we do
If there’s enough left over, I might eat too

We spend most of our time here in a whole-way shelter
Rust-stained gate and chain-linked containers
Thankful we’ve earned this destination
Instead of the alternative
Where we can cash out our dream banks for the hopes of better gold
Even though we’re not sure of the accounts we’ve been sold

Everyone here sleeps, eyes clinched into folds
But awake in mind sweat
Soaking in the nightmares of regret
When barreled crabs said, “you all won’t get past”
And, “you’ll never last”
And, “we’ll be seeing you when you come crawling back”

But this was never intended to be a round trip
We have a new home here even though
We’re not aware where exactly here is
Or if it’s built real in stick or brick
But in the hope of the memories
We haven’t started remembering yet

So, I try not to be a burden
At nine o’clock, I walk across the parking lot
To start the job that I’ve created
Washing windshields for tips
And trotting across traffic to get
Another car clean to cover business expenses
Incorporating my skills from an era gone by
Of staying organized
To capitalize my homeland’s handouts
Before they were demoralized

At eleven o’clock, I beat down the tracks
To bus restaurant tables and bust my back
Below minimum wage reimbursement
Where it’s a fact that taxes get held back
In snide murmurs and slant glances
Carving contempt on my appearances
I absorb this as a symbol of respect
As I did before, our towers were wrecked.

At the other eleven o’clock, I slip through the cracks
Of the shelter’s back door slats
And immerse my mind
In language and cultural contexts
Of the people and places I didn’t know existed
In this new condition set

I often wonder why we worried and hesitated
And held our expectations on presidential level aspirations
Instead of holding ourselves as the democratic inspiration
In the nation our ancestors created
We eroded through horror and hatred
Where we poked one another’s eyes
Bled ourselves to death then painted
Our remnants onto dust bound, thin air

At night, I don’t sleep much at all
Remembering what we had before the fall
The collapse of the systems
Freedom and prosperity
Jester dancing in the world’s mockery
Wrapped in tricolor liberty wings

But now, it all seems like a distant dream
I, go sleepless, knowing it isn’t a thing
No more grain waves or sea shines
The Mother of Exiles sank in the shoreline
As another empire lost on its way to find
The cause that made it an envious emblem

Now, they say I’m the problem


Urban Cowboys

this is where we sleep against tonight
paper pallets lining the underpass
tomorrow we follow the sun’s tail
pulling the needle in our compass
towards another city’s concrete stable
wind whisking the stray cat’s mane
from left to right and North to West
without hay filling our bellies
our Coke bottle canteens collect dust
as we close our eyes around headlight fires
resting our feet on empty bed rolls
and wonder, “When will we ever be home?”


With Backs to the Rules

navigating life in a series of legends
meandering across the foreign out there
most people travel by grasping for the rules

some reach to rules to know where to stand
other lean into rules for strength
the greedy want rules to get ahead
the rebels want rules to overthrow

but instead, there are poets
poets travel with their backs to the rules
in an eternal commission
banished outside Plato’s republic

with one foot on the frontier of the knowable
and the other foot hovering over the faith filled infinite
white-knuckling enough courage to speak of sins
wrestle written love ciphers for translating fringes
in fragments onto the next poet

in messages urging us to leave safety and step outside
and in time, return to spread the possibility
of how poets travel,

with backs to the rules

The New Colossus

(*Note: A series of four blackout poems repeated from, The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus as written on the base of the U.S. Statue of Liberty.)

Brendan Dawson is an American-born poet and writer based in Italy. Brendan writes from his experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad.  Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time serving in the military and journey as an expat.