.

To the Venezuelan Drug Runners Sleeping in the Sea

To Tren de Aragua—congratulations on your new life
as Caribbean flotsam.

Hello there, fellows—great to see you there.
I guess you never thought you’d be like fish.
One minute in a boat, and then a flare
Of hot exploding metal. In one swish
You and your obscene cargo of cocaine
Are down in Neptune’s cold and kelpy tangle.
It hit so fast I’m sure you felt no pain—
Surprise, perhaps. You overlooked this angle:
We won’t take crap from terrorists like you.
From now on you’re a target for our rockets.
We’ll hit you without warning, and your crew
Will have their arms and legs blown from their sockets.

We know, we know—you hoped our stupid Left
Would scream about “due process” and “the right
To sail on the high seas.” Well, you’re bereft
Of those illusions now. Our Navy’s might
Will now sink any goddamned boat you fill
With fentanyl and cocaine or the like.
The U.S. now has leaders with the will
To smash you with a straight and lethal strike.
Forget about your liberal friends. They’ll moan
And write their letters to the New York Times.
As for us, we’ll make you sob and groan
In penance for your arrogance and crimes.

This isn’t vengeance—this is retribution.
We’ll pay you back with interest for your drugs.
We’re sick of you, and this is our solution:
To turn you into fish-food and sea slugs.
Make phone calls to your friends at CBS;
Send plangent whines to Britain’s BBC;
Complain to liberals that you’re in distress;
Quote lawyers on your “right to sail the sea.”
All in vain—we too long have endured
Such blatherskite and sentimental dreck.
There’s this one way the sickness will be cured:
You send a boat, we’ll send shells through its deck.

.

.

Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide.  He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.

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9 Responses

  1. Brian Yapko

    Joe, this is a brilliant poem which you must have written at breakneck speed — fueled, no doubt, by the adrenaline-rush of seeing the United States finally stand for something moral and right and actually act rather than just dither. We have come many miles from the witless, impotent Biden administration. Thank Heaven.

    Yes, there are plenty of liberals who are appalled by Trump’s decisive action. I couldn’t care less. They seem to love dead addicts and are willing to sacrifice families and decency and sanity and lives on the altar of their perfect, unchallenged ideologies. To me, they are angels of death who have become so astonishingly intelligent that they can no longer discern right from wrong because it’s all relative and complicated. I pity them. If they had ever actually experienced the life-changing horror of watching a poor, hopeless addict who came from a good home and had so much potential but who got hooked and then overdosed and died in front of them and then attended their funeral and tried to help a family understand why no one would help… Well, they might feel differently.

    There is a grim satisfaction to seeing these evil drug lords and their mules receive retribution — those who have killed so many and destroyed the souls of so many more. As Doc Holliday observes in Tombstone — it’s not revenge. It’s a reckoning. And now the bad guys sleep with the fishes. Good. Our country is infinitely better off for it.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Deepest thanks to you, Brian. Yes, I was in a state of exultation and I wrote this poem in less than a hour.

      I am baffled and infuriated by the absurd and pettifogging objections raised by left-liberals to our government’s action. When I read that some jackasses insisted that we should “have gotten a court order first,” or we ought to “have consulted with Congress first and had a debate,” or that our obligation was to “stop the vessel first and search it,” it becomes quite clear to me that the Left is completely brain-dead, or enslaved by TDS.

      We are in a war with these rotten cartels, and decisions in combat do not wait upon stupid, petty, procedural rules.

      Reply
  2. Mark Stellinga

    No bark – all bite, Joe, and I’m with you all the way! The right wing media needs to AI up an image of 100,000+ corpses piled up on a football field and leave it on screen for a day or two to strongly accentuate what the cartel is doing to our country and let it frickin’ sink in. We have the perfect president in charge of how to fight back against both the drug runners and, like you say, the ‘brain-dead’ Left. Well done-

    Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Dr. Salemi, this is another one of your magnificent poems that shows your mastery once again and sends a great message not only to the reader, but to the cartels and the media. I have felt for a long time that the secret head of the Venezuelan drug trades/cartels is the “President” of that country who profits in more than one way from dealing death to Americans.

    Reply
  4. Cynthia L Erlandson

    I say, good show! (both the poem and the action). I, too, am exceedingly impressed with your ability to write the perfect poetic response to this event with such speed!

    Reply
  5. Scharlie Meeuws

    Thank you for your brilliant and energising poem. You are so right to be euphoric about this hit. For once someone took a decision. In our country, the UK, leaders should applaud and learn from you, unfortunately, as you mention, we have the abominable BBC here and the European Human Rights Act….

    Reply
  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    Thank you all for your comments. I am in the midst of the new teaching semester and I cannot reply individually.

    Reply
  8. Russel Winick

    Joseph:

    I love the poem and its sentiments, and am in awe of the fact that you wrote it in under an hour! Incredible!

    Reply

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