The Mars Deception

Check the compass

We're all about Mars

Hauling feet en masse

Talking all that jazz

But I'll pass

Weather conditions surpass

This low grade razz

And overrated crass.

What about the dew that traps

The stars in a blade of grass?

What about that lil' lass'

Hope of a fighting chance?

Have you done the math?

Count the consequence,

Put the horse behind the cart

For a second, brightsparks

Before we're roast lab rat.

This is reality uncensored

Time to pull all the stops

Calling all aliases

Upgrade your climate compliances

Earth

To the Dancers of Death!

This is where we belong

We don't know zilch about Venus

And Old Mars

Is riddled with old scars

Scars probably, telling us

That planet was once a suburb

Of beings of superior intelligence

Who lost it all perhaps, to negligence.

Along came a human

Pondering, 'Didn't they almost have it all?'

Forgetting he carbonized his own land

He's only there for Planet B

This would've been pure comedy

Had the situation not been ironic

We're the laughingstock

Of the universe

The carbon emissions say tiktok

And we've learned no lesson but the reverse.

So turn up the bass

Stop being an ass

Stop stacking up carcass

Ain't no time like now

Climate justice now!

Akpan

She Loved To Dance

The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírezand
his nearly 2-year-old daughter, Valeria, lie
onthe bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico.

Vali loved to dance

Could she have your hands?

Of course, she knows classical

Sweet Mexican baroque guitar

Vali is from Salvador

Her momma’s Tania Avalos

Vali got her pets stuffed

Then she made a pit stop.

Vali had a father

A stalwart who was Oscar

They made to swim a river

And get across the border

Vali hit the bank

Of the Rio Grande

She was with her father

And she won’t be back.

Akpan

Pale Irretrievables

Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his
nearly 2-year-old daughter, Valeria who drowned trying to cross
the Rio Grande river in Mexico to Brownsville, Texas, USA.
Courtesy: The Washington Post

Could you please hold that line?

Before you rock your shine

Come let me take you right

Down to a friend of mine

She’s down by the Rio Grande

Tucked in the death damp

T-shirt of the young man

This tragic beauty once called ‘Dad’

Dead

Did I tell you she died?

The river took her head

And banged it against its spine

Again! Again! Again!

Again! Again! Again!

             Again!

Until locked in that final embrace…

Even so she held her grace

Maybe she yelled his name

As the current slapped her face

And choked her

Until all she did was whisper

Down by the Rio Grande

Lay Valeria

Marooned on the banks among the reeds

Tucked into the t-shirt of a man

Named after the famed award for movies

Down by the Rio Grande

Is a picture less than grand.

Akpan