The Broken English Dream

It was the night

before the welfare check

and everybody sat around the table

hungry heartbroken cold confused

and unable to heal the wounds

on the dead calendar of our eyes

Old newspapers and empty beer cans

and jesus is the master of this house

Picture frames made in japan by the u.s.

was hanging out in the kitchen

which was also the livingroom

the bedroom and the linen closet

Wall to wall bad news was playing

over the radio that last week was stolen

by dying dope addicts looking for a fix

to forget that they were ever born

The slumlord came with hand grenades

in his bad breath to collect the rent

we were unable to pay six month ago

and inform us and all the empty

shopping bags we own that unless

we pay we will be evicted immediately

And the streets where the night lives

and the temperature is below zero

three hundred sixty-five days a year

will become our next home address

All the lightbulbs of our apartment

were left and forgotten at the pawnshop

across the street from the heart attack 

the broken back buildings were having

Infants not born yet played hide n seek

in the cemetery of their imagination

Blind in the mind tenants were praying

for numbers to hit so they can move out

and wake up with new birth certificates

The grocery stores were outnumbered by

funeral parlors with neon signs that said

Customers wanted No experience necessary

A liquor store here and a liquor store

everywhere you looked filled the polluted

air with on the job training prostitutes

pimps and winos and thieves and abortions

White business store owners from clean-cut

plush push-button neat neighborhoods

who learn how to speak spanish in six weeks

wrote love letters to their cash registers

Vote for me! said the undertaker: I am

the man with the solution to your problems

To the united states we came

To learn how to mispell our name

To lose the definition of pride

To have misfortune on our side

To live where rats and roaches roam

in a house that is definitely not a home

To be trained to turn on television sets

To dream about jobs you will never get

To fill out welfare applications

To graduate from school without an education

To be drafted distorted and destroyed

To work full time and still be unemployed 

To wait for income tax returns

and stay drunk and lose concern

for the heart and soul of our race

and the climate that produce our face 

To pledge allegiance

to the flag

of the united states

of installment plans

One nation

under discrimination

for which it stands

and which it falls

with poverty injustice

and televised

firing squads

for everyone who has

the sun on the side

of their complexion 

Lapiz: Pencil

Pluma: Pen

Cocina: Kitchen

Gallina: Hen 

Everyone who learns this

will receive a high school equivalency diploma

a lifetime supply of employment agencies

a different bill collector for every day of the week

the right to vote for the executioner of your choice

and two hamburgers for thirty-five cents in times square

We got off

the two-engine airplane

at idlewild airport

(re-named kennedy airport

twenty years later)

with all our furniture

and personal belongings

in our back pockets 

We follow the sign

that says welcome to america

but keep your hands

off the property

violators will be electrocuted

follow the garbage truck

to the welfare department

if you cannot speak english 

So this is america

land of the free

for everybody

but our family

So this is america

where you wake up

in the morning

to brush your teeth

with the home relief

the leading toothpaste

operation bootstrap

promise you you will get

every time you buy

a box of cornflakes 

on the lay-away plan

So this is america

land of the free

to watch the

adventures of superman

on tv if you know

somebody who owns a set

that works properly

So this is america

exploited by columbus

in fourteen ninety-two

with captain video

and lady bird johnson

the first miss subways

in the new testament

So this is america

where they keep you

busy singing

en mi casa toman bustelo

en mi casa toman bustelo