Your one Phone call published my poem about visas called “American Dreams”. it is a bit cynical look at the visa process written when I was a visa officer in Mumbai, India back in 2003 when each day we had over 1,000 people lined up for their two minute chance at the getting a visa. Most were legitimate, perhaps 25 percent were fraudulent and as the fraud investigator I became quite cynical as I had seen it all.
Needless to say this poem does not reflect the views of the US Government, my employer at the time.
American Dreams
You see them
Every morning
Lined outside
Any US Embassy
Around the world
The visa seekers
The American Dream seekers
The poor, the dispossessed
The disenfranchised
The marginalized
The forgotten
The left behinds
Of the not so great society
The rich, the mightily
The powerful
The beautiful
All looking for a slice
Of the American Dream
Some to sample its delicious flavors
Others to try to live
Among its deceptive lures
America beckons
As it has for years and years
Land of the free
Home of the brave
Lady Liberty
Land where a dream
And a little luck
Can make you too
The richest man alive
So they line up
Outside my office door
Just to talk
To the American Visa God
Spin a tale
Tell a story
Play a game
Pretend to be
What the American Visa God needs
And then you get
Your piece of the American Pie
And off you go
Only to end up
In a thousand neglected
Backwaters of the American nightmare
Flotsam
Floating from one marginal
Illegal job to another
Prey to the predators
Ever behind
The rent demands
For you see
America is a rich habit
It is expensive to maintain
The first taste is free
The rest will cost yah
You life, your soul
And 70 hours per week
At sub-minimum wages
Soon you will be speaking
English
With the poor, the disenfranchised
The flotsam
The neglected
The left behinds
The rich will ignore you
Not know your name
The poor will fear
You will take their jobs away
And your friends back home
Will wait to hear
About you became a big shot
In the American land
They don’t want to hear
No tales of working at McDonald’s
Working 70 hours a week
At five jobs per day
No, No, No
That’s not the America
They see on TV
They want it now
They want their MTV
Where’s the babes?
Where’s the parties?
Where’s the sex with naked ladies
Come on man,
You’re holding out
Tell us the tales
Of Wild America
And so they line up
Each and every day
Line up outside
My office window
And we have the power
To set them free
Some to enable them
To dream the American dream
Some to send to the American nightmare
Others to go back home
To wherever they come back
They will be back
They will be back
Nothing will deter them
Not even the lack
Of a piece of paper
From the American Visa God
american dreams your one phone call
