Undocumented poem
This poem has traveled a thousand miles
And risked its life to get here
Now it waits on the corner hoping
That someone driving by will offer it work
Homeless poem
When the cops see this poem in greasy fatigues
Sleeping in an alley
They roust it out of its cardboard shelter
Jab it in the ribs and tell it to move on
Jobless poem
This poem asked to use the toilet
Once too often during its 16-hour shift
And was fired from its job
Making $150 jeans for $2 a day
Indigenous poem
The reason this poem is lying
Beheaded in a ditch next to its murdered infant
Is that it refused to vacate its ancestral land
To make way for mining corporations
Orphan poem
When this poem was still in utero
Its mother sought treatment for AIDS
But couldn't afford to pay for the drugs
And died soon after the birth
Collateral damage poem
This poem lost both of its legs
And all of its friends
When the school they'd taken refuge in
Was repeatedly bombed
Incarcerated poem
When it complained about the food
This poem was dragged from its cell
Savagely beaten
And placed in spirit-crushing isolation
Evicted poem
The banker misrepresented
The abstruse technicalities concealed
In the fine print of this poem's mortgage
Which caused it to lose its home
Uninsured poem
When this poem was diagnosed
With breast cancer
Its insurer fabricated a loophole
And cancelled its policy
Indefinitely detained poem
This poem does not know
What it is charged with
Or the evidence against it
And will never go to trial
Combat veteran poem
Tormented by what it saw and did in the war
This poem tried several times
To commit suicide
And finally succeeded
Amazonian poem
By the time the oil company stopped drilling
The pristine waters of this poem's home
In the rainforest
Had become toxic sludge
Campesino poem
This poem was forced to leave its fields
For sweatshops on the border
Because agribusiness corn
Destroyed small-scale farming
Dineh poem
The government hired this poem
To dig up uranium on its own lands
And paid it with
Radioactive tailings and cancer
Enemy of the state poem
While it was handcuffed to a metal bed spring
Thousands of volts convulsed this poem's body
After which it was raped
Again and again and again
Enemy combatant poem
Sold to the CIA by a rival faction with a grudge
This poem endured years of torture
To force disclosure of information
It did not have
Buff Whitman-Bradley's poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. With his wife Cynthia he is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, Outside In, and co-editor of the forthcoming book About Face: GI Resisters Turn Against War (PM Press, 2011). He is also co-producer/director of the documentary Por Que Venimos.
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