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| The viability of the Trump administration's border wall has come under fire as all eight prototype structures have failed at least one breach test. The eight border wall prototypes in Otay Mesa, California were assembled in early 2017 after an executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to build the border wall. The news comes as the administration prepares to potentially declare a national emergency to jumpstart construction of the wall along the U.S.’s southern border. —ArchDaily, January 14, 2019 |
There is many
a living thing
That doesn’t love
a wall.
Like hunters, rabbits
and yelping dogs
Like the pine trees
and apple orchards
Like human beings—
Who are not cows—
And quirky elves don’t
like them much either.
The frozen-ground-
swells beneath can crack
Even the strongest stone.
And there are many gaps
Between the stones
nonetheless. You can
Rub your fingers rough
and raw by placing
and replacing
The fallen stones.
Mr. President:
I see you walking in the darkness.
An old, rough savage-stone
Firmly grasped in each
armed hand.
Like an aged hypothermic man
who is lost
and cannot find his way
Like your crotchety, stubborn
neighbor beyond the hill.
Mr. President:
Spring is coming.
Let’s walk the lines:
Remove the walls
separating pines
and trees bearing fruit.
Pull up the stakes,
fill in the ditch, until
not a trace remains.
Mr. President:
Forget your father
He was so very wrong.
Good walls, like selfish men,
make bad neighbors.
Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Ariel Chart, Social Justice Poetry, Poetry24, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, I am not a silent poet, The Potomac, Clark Street Review and the penmen review.