Strange Fire

I will not speak
still I will not keep
silent.

I will commune
with my dead.

In my land, dreams die
in makeshift fires
at polling booths

and unmarked pot-holes
at crossroads
are unmarked tombstones.

We are vast in Marxist theory
and Darwin’s evolution.
We read Machiavelli plus Plato’s Politics.

A bowl of tears
is still the price of a barrel of oil.

It is in silence
One hears the silence
of the despised.

It is in my land
I see the offerings of strange fire
and hear the shibboleths
of new tongues.