THE BIRTHRIGHT OF HOME

by Dick Altman

Attorneys general from 22 states sued President Trump in two federal district courts on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. —The New York Times, January 21, 2025

Reports of Navajo people being detained in immigration sweeps sparks concern from tribal leaders: The DOJ argued in court that Indigenous people don’t have birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, so neither should children of noncitizens born in the US. —Arizona Mirror, January 24, 2025

I marvel,

over six months,

as crews,

of master

craftsmen,

mostly

undocumented,

give birth 

to my house,

overlooking

Rio Grande’s

valley.

 

I watch as raw hunks

of sandstone

bewitch

into new life

as Anasazi-style

walls.

Slabs

of the same rock

sculpted

into geometric

mosaics

of outdoor

walkways

and portals.

 

Amaze

as a Rumsford

fireplace,

known

for its high heat,

transforms

out of nothing

more than

firebrick,

cinder block,

and plaster,

into a work

of art,

reminding

of Spain’s

Middle Ages.

And so

the entire house

evolves

in that spirit.

 

I begin to wonder,

as the birthright

of countless

newborns,

of alien parents,

is in effect,

stripped

from the Constitution,

could

the government

call into question

the legality

of my house,

conceived

by undocumented

foreign labor,

to exist

on American soil?

 

I imagine

coming home

one day

to an empty lot,

not even a trace

of the concrete

underpinnings.

Posted on one

of many Aspen

I planted

over the years,

a document

claiming to be

an executive

order.

 

It reads:

“Your home,

propagated

by illegal

foreign labor,

has lost

its birthright

to shelter you.

The government

has no recourse

but to remove it

from your

property.

You’re welcome

to rebuild

with trades

of authentic

American

descent.”

 

What can I say,

as I look down

at Pueblos,

diminished

by untold eras, 

so they must

have seemed,

of America’s

dispossession?

What    can   I   say?

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

TO PRESIDENT TRUMP WHO IS THROWING HIS WEIGHT BEHIND THE DEATH PENALTY

by CaLokie

Text of the diktus.

Why

do we kill people 

who kill people

to show 

that killing people

is wrong

and why,

if we kill people 

who kill people

to show

that killing people 

is wrong

are we four times more likely 

to kill people 

who kill white people

to show 

that killing white people

is wrong

than we are people 

who kill black people 

to show

that killing black people

is wrong

and why,

if killing people who kill people

deter people 

from killing people

do countries

who kill people who kill people

to show 

that killing people is wrong

have more 

people who kill people

than countries who imprison 

people who kill people

to show that 

killing people is wrong

and why,

if we spend six times more 

to kill people 

who kill people

than we do when we 

imprison without parole people 

who kill people

and why,

if killing people who kill people

deter people 

from killing people

do countries

who kill people who kill people

to show 

that killing is wrong

have more 

people who kill people

than countries who imprison 

people who kill people

to show that 

killing is wrong

and why,

if our country has so many 

people who believe in God

and so glories in the cross 

on which 

Jesus was tortured

and killed 

but that cross was how  

Roman people tortured

and killed people 

who they believed had done 

something wrong 

and why,

if you can’t fight fire

with fire

and two wrongs

don’t make

a right

and though 

sometimes subsequent 

evidence shows 

the people executed 

for killing people 

did not kill the people 

for which they 

had been convicted 

and since we are 

not GOD

but people,

why

do we kill people 

who kill people

to show 

that killing people

is wrong?

Author’s note: This poem is not based on an old Barbra Streisand song but from a bumper sticker asking the question, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?”

Editor’s note: The bumper sticker our poet recalls quotes a lyric from Holly Near’s 1980 song “Foolish Notion.”

 

Carl Stilwell (aka CaLokie) is a retired teacher who taught for over 30 years in the Los Angeles Unified school District and participated in UTLA’s teachers’ strikes in 1970 and 1989. He was born during the depression in Oklahoma and came to California in 1959 and has lived there ever since. His pen name was inspired by the Joads struggle for survival in The Grapes of Wrath and the songs and life of Woody Guthrie. He has poems published in Altadena Poetry Review, Blue Collar Review, Four Feather’s Press, Lummox, Pearl, Prism, Revolutionary Poets Brigade--Los Angeles, Rise Up, Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, The Sparring Artists. 

THE FORTRESS, MY UNCLE

by Indran Amirthanayagam

President Biden announced an executive order on Tuesday to essentially block asylum at the southern border, a major shift in how the United States has historically handled claims for protection. The move, a suspension of longtime guarantees that give anyone who steps onto U.S. soil the right to seek a safe haven, is intended to deter illegal border crossings, an issue that has weighed on Mr. Biden’s political fortunes as he heads into the November presidential election… Immigration advocates have said the changes, taken together, amount to a virtual suspension of the asylum system for people crossing the border. The Biden administration “is eliminating key protections to prevent refugees from being returned to harm through imposition of this ‘shout test,’” said Robyn Barnard, a lawyer at Human Rights First. “It will be a recipe for disaster and certainly result in refugees being sent to danger or worse death.” —The New York Times, June 4, 2024

The fortress, the wall, thou shalt

not enter these rolling hills and 

grasslands where bison and 

Natives once roamed. You will 

not drink at the rancher’s 

trough or sleep in the sanctuary 

city’s single residency hotel. You 

will not get bussed to the liberal

East where a temporary home

waits until shelter services stop 

at sixty days and you find

yourself on the proverbial street

unless you have relatives willing 

to keep you off the public books. 

This is no grand illusion, no 

welcome, but you have left 

your local gangs to find 

a safer and more fitting union, 

turned into a red and blue 

wall. Incredible failure 

of the big heart to open, 

to say we will find a way 

to allow the Dream free again 

as in the old poems and movies 

that led our fathers and mothers 

to make the trek west and east, 

north and south. Goodbye 

to all that jazz America. Goodbye.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press has just published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun. (Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.