Here So Close To The Capitol Poem by Sami Gjoka

It is dead quiet here.
It is dark.
And it is scary.

All the homes are boarded up.

I feel sleepy and weary.

As if glued to this chair.
Bloodless, hopeless, dark, and pale
I sit, lonely, on the porch
Like a frog above a pond
That is dirty
That is stale.

They have sold our house,
To a bloodthirsty investor
Only for a few dollars,
Auctioned at the city sale
For the uncollected taxes.

Not a neighbor left around

I just listen to the radio.

You can no longer criticize
That I am a selfish speaker,
Deaf and blind to other people,
Never allowed to speak their mind.

I am hungry
And I am thirsty for that matter,
Like a sack of ragged bones
Crushed and grinded by the pain,
I feel floated, pushed, and slammed
In the oceans of my anger.

Should you come and stick around
From that dirty, muddy ground
I think I would be adored
By, once, a silent lady
But silent, never more,
You would be an incessant talker
Since I stopped and talk no longer
Only listen
To the news.

That’s all there is to listen.

Greed of ages, ages old
Bleeds across the globe anew.

We sent our countrymen
At their highest peak of strength
To burn cities from the sky.

Some say that there is a snake
We must slay
Filled with venom of religion
Of some other distant lands,
Of some poor, unhappy people
Scattered through some oil fields
Of those regions

Some say it’s to spread the freedom.

I think, grandchildren of ours,
Could have been some of them,
If our Mikey had returned
From that Vietnam mire jungle,
If he simply had decided
Not to leave the cruelty
Of this satanic world
To become a heavenly angel,
Showered by the light of God
At the farthest end of sky,
Holy for entirety.

But our only son did not
Ever come to save our home.
We have none of our blood
Fighting for the corporations,
Like that heartless, shark investor
Roaming our neighborhood,
Standing farther like a mouse,
In the dark.

Those who sent us to the battle,
If we bleed and die for them,
In a tor or in a glen,
Will give us a martyr’s burial
Then take every single chattel
From our taken, foreclosed homes
And sell them for unpaid taxes
And to pay the unpaid debts
Still to them.

He must be one of them
He who purchased our house.

No hopes that are fit and vital
In my murky, small horizons
To redeem and clear the title
Of our home.

I can see the Capitol
And I see the monument
But for only few days
That are left.

I will drag my ancient body
Small and thin, and faint and frail
In and out of our house,
Like a turtle, like a snail.

I’ll not tire, I will not cede
Till the court will pass the deed
But that’s only for a while
I will fail and I will yield
To that happy, lucky buyer
Of the annual, DC sale.

It is dark and I am scared to attract any attention
That’s why I have no light,
For protection,
For prevention,
’Cause at night I see around
People that do smell of danger
But no,
Not a single neighbor.

Is there really any heaven?

To me simply dying is.
For it seems I lived too long.

If I was made of iron
I’d be rusting broke and torn
Scattered into many pieces.

It is dark and no one knows
That I am here, having tea,
Salty from my dropping tears

But also you never know
I might finish this poem
And perhaps win the contest
For this kind of poetry.

I don’t need a lot of money
To redeem our house.

If I ever will be blest
With such a joy
And such a zest
I shall scream and shall exclaim,
To kill grief and to kill pain
With wallows of success.

I’ll raise my middle finger
To the leeches of our flesh
That spit venom in our faces
Sending “Mikeys” to the dirt
For their drinks to get sweeter;
For their ever-growing thirst.

And in case I might win
And redeem back our house
I will search for every picture
That we both took of him
Long before he was lost
And forgotten in the jungle.
Before the wind of fate
Blew and doused the flame of life
From his candle

Then again I’ll fill the walls
With pictures of our son,
Of our son for whom I cry
Day and night,

Of our son that used to say,
Being sad, and being brittle
That he feared to grow old
And wanted to stay little

“Daddy, if I grow old, ”
He would say, “You will die.”
And he never grow did
And I never asked why

It is dead quiet here, it is dark
Here, so close to the Capitol.