Of Pilgrim-More Plague Returns - Lamentation Broken Song For Empire's End Poem by Warren Falcon

for immigrant children imprisoned at USA borders, and their parents

with love, for James Baldwin; and Federico Garcia Lorca, executed by fascists

Who by fire who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?
And who shall I say is calling? - Leonard Cohen, from 'Who By Fire'


America,2018 - a vision even seabirds refuse to scavenge.

Why?
Why do you hang from the balcony of God?
Why the black bull in a wedding dress standing
in your moonlight window singing songs of love

when Justice is calling,
when Justice is calling?

Precious little timbres of silver,
precious tiny bells of bronze,
ring from each massive horn.


Eternal Wheel.
Wheel eternal.
Why?
Why spin at all when
behind eyelids of a
dying sun is the Finality.


Here, awake now,
feathers, hope,
burn to ashes.

Dear ones. Dear ones, pray.

Pray that feather ash is more preservative than the feather outright.

In the only EXIT stands a viejo, a seashell
patch over one eye, at the frontera he spins
his 19th century barrel organ mournfully
singing the end of Empire.