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ALI ZARRIN


Letter to My Expatriate Friends

You left us without a forwarding address, 
dropped your bad relatives from a horrible past,
turned your back on us

We were guilty as charged:
perpetuating the empire
and its machine

You saved yourself just in time,
escaped the rat race—
our insane urge to dominate others
our excesses of willful ignorance
our endless worship of material goods 
and material gods

This was not a personal matter
you left your home
and all the things that related to your past
determined to change
your environment,
your friends,
your perception of yourself

I knew your adventurous nature
one year you were a lumber jack in Alaska,
one year you biked through the Rockies
for many years living abroad
and mastering foreign languages and cultures

Last time we communicated you talked about joining
an obscure Buddhist sect, making lots of money, 
and writing a novel

Now you are gone
and I thought we will be friends forever
perhaps you saw us as dead—
in our souls
belligerent to each other
as compared to the calculated and cultured behavior of the Europeans or Asians

We are raw and unaware
of our endless greed 
our insatiable thirst for war
our addiction to constant soap opera
our petty-mindedness
phobias of many shades and colors

Perhaps you have found your peace
the smooth rhythm of your life
people that are not mischievous and back-handed

Will you ever come back and enlighten us––
tell us that hope or no hope 
we live our small lies
the same way people do everywhere?

Come back and tell us,
“I told you so!”
And point to our diminished democracy
our peaceful demonstrators sequestered and kept miles away 
from their “President”
in the boxed up areas of a paved parking lot in Denver’s DNC convention
or arrested and battered in Minnesota near RNC’s
our politicians for hire by the lobbyists for corporations
our elections stolen or decided by judges rather then by the votes of the people
our disregard for the environment and for each other
our dependence on foreign oil that is tainted with blood
our backing of dictators abroad
our staggering one trillion dollar military budget
our hundreds of military bases all over the world
our prison system for profit—
nearly three million people in jails
mostly from the poor and undocumented immigrants
the demise of our cities
where the corporations were born
to build their vast empires
and then abandoned them 
in search of cheaper labor & lower production cost––
under the guise of compatibility in the global market.
our corporate media bent on spreading propaganda and lies
our self-delusion—dreams of self-grandeur

This is how we became dispensable to you
easy to let go and leave behind
you saw how we were 
oblivious to our own self-destruction
the big corporations running roughshod over us
and our politicians either already in their pockets
or incapable of stopping them
our financial institutions holding people slaves with usury
our homes, cars, furniture, and our future
owned by the banks
our teachers, policemen and fire-fighters and nurses
at their mercy
the constant lies of our false prophets
with microphones made of gold

Of course I don’t blame you
you saved yourself
while we await our own ruination