Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Migrate Back Home To Survive

Migrate Back Home To Survive
© Surazeus
2019 02 13

Like rats that crowd abandoned crumbling hall,
once used as the hospital or library
for the local thriving community,
who moved to the suburbs for spacious yards,
leaving buildings to decay from neglect,
just so we drive our cars on vast highways
from homes through maze to offices for work,
racing each other to earn precious cheese.

Parking my pickup truck in parking lot
of the library where my mother worked,
I paint on brick wall in one hundred panels
ancient legend of the wizard Oloron
who was tending apples in Tarazona
when he saw arrogant prince of Navarra
attempt to rape the gentle girl he loved
then stab her heart when she dared to resist.

So Oloron killed the arrogant prince
then fled into the desolate waste land
through sun-baked hills of Bardenas Reales,
where silent horror of the bleeding sun
squeezed all tears from the hot stone of his heart,
then raced through tangled woods to Peak of Orhy
where he battled forty men on steep slopes,
fighting in thunderstorm of howling rain.

Free from tyranny of the greedy king,
Oloron journeyed north to Aquitaine
where he met beautiful princess Marie
who gave him water to drink at the well
when he stumbled wounded into her grove,
so they lived together in tower of stone,
brewing apple cider for all to drink,
and raising seven children of their love.

Somewhere in the bleak waste land of Detroit,
I sit on cold trunk of my pickup truck
while waiting for clients to buy my coke,
and dream about lush paradise of France
where my ancestors lived ten thousand years
before they became Huguenots and fled
cruel persecution from the Catholic Church
and settled on lush shore of Lake Ontario.

My father worked on the large merchant ships
but when he was injured by falling crate
he began to drink to numb searing pain
and died destitute and broke in some alley,
so I worked in car factories in Detroit
but got fired for working at my own pace,
which was not fast enough to make the quota,
so now I sell coke which I never use.

Just one more sale, then I have earned enough
to fly to France where I can start anew
in the land where my ancestors once lived,
but the people driving into my lot
look like narcs and undercover police,
so I jump in my truck and drive away
and hide in the woods till the heat dies down,
then head to the airport with my passport.

After I sell my truck for a hundred bucks,
I have enough to buy my ticket home
but once I land at the Bordeaux Airport
I will have no more money to my name,
although living homeless and penniless
in land where my ancestors herded sheep
is better than being stuck in Detroit hell,
so I must migrate back home to survive.

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