The Deportable
by Jonathan Andrew Pérez, Esq.
“Speak, Memory – of the cunning hero, the wanderer, blown off course time and again” - Homer, The Odyssey Book I
“And that god snuffed out their day of return.” -- Homer, The Odyssey Book I
Solstice- vagrant life, inherit language, death, fugitive symbolism
He must not see the guilt, hung by necks of Emperors, or keep stealing.
Tarot reading blood & bones –a bondsman’s schism
Douglass to England, a splotchy Jesus bankrupt our surety needing,
Poor am I now green worms & contraband follow my future sleeping;
A father, foretold, before bed, child rhymes of seceding, West Indies-bred.
An angel fell moonward loose of bondsmen, sun rise with none weeping.
1846 to 1966, this deportable translation: I am I, not be charged meaning instead.
Deportable bodies twitch in heaven, stoops lit extricate unsung army of monks
Ad hoc committee of angels of injustice, swift above Oakland, send safety nets:
Chant terror sing, police, felled by Icarus-like wings bend wax funk.
Our fury shivers our backs, sends us back by railroad years outside walls to sweat.
American stock market, invest less in the coroner’s candlelight vigil bet –
Emancipate policy men who earn just to be just – quiet now bullet-box rough
Come ladies and Gentlemen, all bets on red – I am he who fell centuries bereft
A birth rite place is there, deported, flesh of my flesh extradited American handcuff.
He who knows himself well shall humble in His presence,
Spit out, earthquake rumble of the Mexican Revolution, Zapatistas burned
1911 instead, vested in pools blood of my blood, dismissed, taught lessons
Mexican Mermaid, they say, or chant contemplates, in canals bad earned
There is a barrio where the Mermaids took conquistadores gravely to stem ferns.
Xochimilco, the whole tide white-black, all billions return wind-myth washed it
There is a barrio not far from an Undiscovered City, and freedom turned
Based on the evidence, admit, the deported acquit and now on thrones exist, upon which no master sits.
Jonathan Andrew Pérez, Esq. has published poetry online and in print in Prelude, The Write Launch, Meniscus Literary Journal, Rigorous Literary Journal, The Florida Review’s Latino/Latinx publication, Panoply Magazine, Paradigm, the Raw Art Review, Junto Magazine, Watermelanin, Cold Mountain Review’s Justice Issue, Yes Poetry, and Silver Needle Press. He has poems forthcoming in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, River Heron Review, The Tulane Review, Metafore Magazine, Abstract: Contemporary Expressions, Mud Season Review, The Tiny Journal, Westchester Review, Pamplemousse, and Swimming with Elephants.
Jonathan was selected by The Virginia Quarterly Review 2018 for a workshop with Jericho Brown and Cave Canem, respectively. He has won the Bowdoin Poetry Prize and Nathalie Walker Llewellyn Prize in Poetry.
He has a day job as an Assistant District Attorney as a prosecutor.
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