<The Newest Colossus>

Mother of Exiles, such is her name.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

But what awaits “the tempest-tost,

The wretched refuse of the world,”

Is a wall. Grey and high, grim and unwelcome

It stands, blocking the way to the dream-land

The land of freedom of fairness.

“No one shall enter, no one shall cross.

I do not want any of your tired or your poor,

I reject you huddled masses, whatever they want!”

O, wall, keep standing, and keep barricading the way.

Make America great again! Make her great by herself!

And remain isolated from the rest of the world.

O grey wall, trapping America inside.

<Laplace’s Demon>

For dozens of centuries, those human beings have

Argued and fought about philosophy, you know,

The whole lot of stuff ‘bout the mind and the soul,

Free will, and morals, but it doesn’t exist, ‘cause,

Every single entity in the whole wide world,

Are made out of atoms and them bouncing off,

So here is the question: so if you know how,

They’re moving around, can you figure out how

They’ll act the next second, and the second after that?

Well, I know, and that is why I’m called,

Laplace’s demon, the guy who always knows,

Past, present and future, and everything between,

‘Cause I calculate every atom, and how they’ll react.

So the big takeaway here, what I wanna say,

Is though that you humans might think you’re all smart,

You’re all acting in a pre-predicted way.

Predicted by who? By me, of course!

So no free will, and no destination,

In all of your trouble-filled lives.

No God, no feelings, no choice, no sense,

And no kind of decision or thought.

The universe is a massive clock,

And you guys are just the wires and springs.

Yes, in a way, all of you guys are,

No different from a robot, the only difference is,

That you wear and tear and die, while those A.I robots don’t.

All of you are programmed, and all of you return to earth.

Listen to my words, for I’m Laplace’s demon,

The guy who always knows past, present and future,

Everything I say must come to be true,

‘Cause I’m Laplace’s demon, the guy who always knows.

The Woman Question Poem: An Ode

<To Jo March: Praising Her Independence>

First, it was Jo, not Josephine, the name you chose:

Not the submissive Josephine, but independent Jo March.

And unlike other women of your age,

You married for love, and for love alone.

The pioneer of independence for women,

The forerunner of women writers.

For a “room of your own” you had,

Not only a physical room, but room of mind,

Room for thought, room for reflection.

Freely you chose name, freely you loved,

Freely you wrote, and freely you shall live in the minds of all.

Voice for the Voiceless Poem: Refrain

Old Abe Lincoln started it,

More than a century ago.

Lyndon B. Johnson made it better,

About sixty years ago.

But still I can’t breathe, oh, I can’t breathe.

My throat is still being crushed.

We are always the minority,

Though strange things happen now and then.

Like how our Covid death rate is higher,

And how we are the ones who get strangled.

That’s why I can’t breathe, oh, I can’t breathe.

My throat is still being crushed.

We are the ones stereotyped,

As the violent, poor, and low

White police officers shoot us,

Before we can do anything.

That’s why I can’t breathe, oh, I can’t breathe.

My throat is still being crushed.

America, what a wonderful land!

The land of prosperity.

But we’re the ones who works for it

And the ones who don’t get much for it.

That’s why I can’t breathe, oh, I can’t breathe.

My throat is still being crushed.