mi ciudad pide clemencia
mi ciudad es un lamento terrible un aullido infinto.
it’s a city screaming, but do we hear?
as if we could. what we call silence
is filled full to the brim with sound,
and the fury in the air… well, it just blends.
it’s a city crying when love is stripped
down to a pale child shivering on a street
corner pinned in the headlight’s glare,
and the need for compassion… well, it just blurs.
it’s a city falling under the blows of fists down
on the grit and broken glass of dreams that
couldn’t fly, and its knees are cut and bleeding
and the hope of a promised future… well, it just…
it’s a city lying when its fathers and fatherly
mothers of command say our children! our children
are our future. though the power and the money
and the privilege… well, it just banks.
it’s a city reaching, carried forward on the backs
of its poor, by the torn hands of laborers, the arms
of lonely mothers, the faces of its children,
and the swell of expectations… well, it just builds.
mi ciudad pide clemencia en su dementia.
inspired by lines of graffiti seen in Juarez, Mexico
