Unheroic Couplets

No innocent civilian should ever
Endure bondage, feel the pain of torture,
Suffer the stings of humiliation,
Know the loneliness of isolation.

No person should be deprived of loved ones,
Not parents, not their daughters nor their sons.
Injustice can never be justified
By causes secular or deified.

Each innocent deserves our attention.
For weeks I’ve rhymed about a detention,
One unjustly held, Kilmar Abrego
Who languishes now and must be let go.

Tragically, there exist many more such
People for whom we must seek and restore:
Margarita Prokopenko is one,
Omri Miran, too, and still we’re not done…

Hawagul Tewekkul is another
Ripped from her home though she is a mother.
And like Kilmar, stuck in a catacomb,
Aisha Kachalla must come back home.

Please Dear Readers, look up each one named here,
Living in sorrow with reason to fear,
Or find names of other innocent folk.
Write about them, useful action to stoke.

Marco Katz Montiel composes poetry and prose in Spanish, English, and musical notes. He went to college late, and then alienated one university by publishing about bigotry on campus and got kicked to the curb by two others for his union activities. Still, Marco managed to graduate and even publish a book on music and literature with Palgrave. His essays, poems, and stories appear in Ploughshares, Jerry Jazz Music, English Studies in Latin America, Copihue Poetry, Camino Real, WestWard Quarterly, Lowestoft Chronicle, Dissident Voice, and in the anthologies Cartas de desamor y otras adicciones, There’s No Place, and the Capital City Press Anthology. Read other articles by Marco Katz, or visit Marco Katz's website.