Tyko Kihlstedt

Photo Essays Capturing the Urban Experience

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The Colossus of 2014, a poem

July 16, 2014 Tyko Kihlstedt 1 Comment

In acknowledgement of our present-day Republicans, who seem to constitute the majority of American citizens protesting government attempts to find temporary housing for the thousands of migrant children from Central America and who very definitely have embraced historical revisionism to further their questionable positions, I attempt my own bit of revisionism in this poem.

My apologies–as well as thanks–to Emma Lazarus, whose poem, The New Colossus (1883), is my inspiration. Unfortunately, her poem, which was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty in 1903, seems not to have managed still to inspire all Americans as once it did.

 

The Colossus of 2014
Unlike our be-robed Liberty
that gift from France to New York City
honoring our youthful generosity
in opening to the homeless
the poor
a golden door,
Today’s well regulated Militia
offers threats instead
no beacon-hand to light the way
they scream go home
die you may
children of an alien land
they don’t care to understand;
Don’t breathe their air
it isn’t free
to them you are not refugees
you want their stuff
they have no room
begone with you
even if it be your doom.

 
 

 

Chris Davis and “Patriots” at the Border, Facebook Photo
No Illeagles, Shelter Facility, Westminster, MD, no photo source found
Somos Familia, Honduran Families with Border Patrol, TX, photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez, Austin
Tenemos Miedo, Children from Honduras and El Salvador, Texas Border, photo by Eric Gay, AP

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: Anti-Immigrant Protests, Children, El Salvador, Emma Lazarus, Honduras, Immigration, Latino, Militia, Refugees, Statue of Liberty, The New Colossus, Vigilante

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About Tyko Kihlstedt

Academic, Historian, Amateur Photographer: More
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Comments

  1. Luis Pagan says

    July 16, 2014 at 11:43 pm

    I like this poem Tyko, thanks for sharing.

    Reply

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