American Dreams

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