Handsome Caudillos
By Dan Vera
Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.
—Che Guevara
Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué,
I have a Che t-shirt and I don’t know why.
—Contemporary Argentine saying
I see the red shirt at the peace rally
and think of my parents
who left everyone and every
thing they knew and loved
save for the coin
forgotten in my brother’s baby jacket.
Men like me in Cuba
failed the test of this symbol’s manhood,
were called “Western perversions”
were imprisoned and made to labor.
Thousands, like these assembled,
were rounded up in the middle of the night
driven to the far countryside to cut sugarcane
for a revolution’s economic quotas.
Tio Alberto’s eyes go blank
when he speaks of the price he paid:
three years of forced hard labor
to work like a dog in the sun
for the privilege of leaving his own country.
I think of the chain of caudillos that promised
one thing and delivered another.
Copyright Credit: Dan Vera, "Handsome Caudillos" from Speaking Wiri Wiri. Copyright © 2013 by Dan Vera. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source: Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press, 2013)