“A lot of people don’t have much food on their table
But they got a lot of forks and knives
And they gotta cut somethin’ “
-TALKIN’ NEW YORK, Bob Dylan, 1962
It all looks so normal out there
Sitting in a garden chair
Winds drying out the humid air.
Children ride their bikes in the street
Shouting out challenge to those they meet.
Everything looks tidy and neat
Like the 1200 men stowed like trash behind the door
Confined to Cecot, deprived of the rule of law
Hidden and forbidden to leave El Salvador.
Only a few are known criminals, most with misdemeanors
Like parking tickets, who need an intervenor
To explain confining the innocent is certainly meaner
Than recognizing fraternities are simply rich kids’ gangs
And poverty creates such hunger pangs
That forks are not much use and knives have to cut
Something.
Following daily routines can also be mean
When we ignore so easily the suffering of the poor
So easily victimized while we stand with false pride
Crying on social media at what we have lost,
Free to do so without much cost
Until we discover it is too late to shut the garden gate
And take to the streets dodging kids on bikes
And march in the parks alongside dogs on the leash
As we try not to see how leashed we are.
This is not normal. We are not normal.
We search to find normal any way we can, just
Something
before the knives come out.
annarino writes 