The life of one in Diaspora
Is a life rife with woes
He walks in fear along the street
With feet all set to flee
Should any in a uniform
pay him untoward heed
He sleeps at night with one eye closed
and the other wide awake.
He lives in abject dread
of his phone ringing,
a knock on his door
or the receipt of a mail.
Is it a debtor or the State?
Both he envisages as mortal foes
To his existence in Diaspora.
For his presence is deemed “illegal”
The word that come readily in mind
In description of one in Diaspora
May rhyme in sync with such as
Dispiriting, discouraging, disheartening and debasing
Disenchanting, despairing, disparaging and discontentment
Disappointing, disconnected,
desperate and disharmony
And I must add dehumanising.
The total rhythm of his life
Could be summed up in these three basic words
Expression, impression and reflection.
These sometimes could be positive
But alas for the Diaspora,
it is more often than not negative
One could say I am a wet sod
Uninspiring and a harbinger of bad news
However the tale I bear is true
For in the knowledge of the Participant Observer
I speak now as a victim
The Diaspora’s is a state of life filled with humiliations
As in a bid to fend for self
He has to accept and anxiously too
Lowly labours he would not touch
With a long stick, in his land of origin.
This is a tale though sad but true, I care not who dispute it
For it gives a sharp and unsavoury taste to the truth
of what the Diaspora lives day by day in his existentialism
As a stranger in a strange land
Young Marcos was sitting on the floor of a down town cafe
where he works in shifts, and weeping his heart out
What ails you my man, queries the cafe boss
So in sniffs and sobs, Marcos tells a tale
As told by those in Diaspopra
Back at home, Marcos had a luxury flat
a good car and a thriving enterprise
To booth and give his life a glowing shine
Fate had given him a pretty fiancé.
But he had sold his car and trade
And like a fool he was had given up his flat
To afford him passage in his venture
Into the unknown of the Diaspora.
All this is in response to his greed and covetousness
To the supposed display of wealth by the returnees from abroad;
As he runs around like a headless chicken
Gathering every conceivable documents for his travel
Lo, Marcos, says his girl, why leave the known you have here
for the unknown you have not.
The wise they say that a bird at hand
is worth the uncountable in the bush.
Bet you are going abroad to become a dish washer
in some crummy down town cafe.
Instead of doing that he swore I would turn round
and come right back home.
Alas; this is his third year in Diaspora,
And today is his turn to wash dishes
in this crummy down town cafe,
but he has missed his bus
and another more desperate than he
has already taken over his shift.
Oh, Marcos, he threw an awful tantrum
He raved and he ranted, and cursed and threatened.
In his rage and storm, he suddenly remembered his oath,
or rather boast in another healthier dispensation
Three years and thousands of miles ago to his loved one.
Instead of I Marcos washing plates in a cafe abroad
I will come right back home.
Here I am now not only washing dishes but have to fight for it.
And his heart broke.
His tale may sound like a fable to the reader of these lines
Or a discouraging fib
for the gullible and the impressionable out there
striving to stride out into the unknown jungle of the Diaspora.
But I advise you my brother or my sister
To chew well before you swallow
Look, they say, before you leap is a sound advice to the
adventurous and the untutored in the rigours of these times.
For though you may yet know it, I will tell you just the same
That all which glitter is not gold.
