The Ballad for an Unknown Candidate

Hesitant, unconfident, you step into the space

to seek numbers to an enmeshed land

the solace of an uncertain dream

in an unclear, distant map of shifting sand;

Tripping on the arcane syntax of a foreign tongue,

bending your mind around diction to enable

the esoteric grammar of an unknown culture -

while the examiner across a makeshift table

Genial but essentially cold to the passion

that burns a path, tears your secure world apart,

smiles comfortingly as your words stumble and trip

a stranger to the dreams that wing your heart.

You watch fascinated as the cultured mouth

forms the well-turned white-accented phrase

as rehearsed and unredeemed words pour forth

from a countenance as brown as your face

poses one insane question after another to which

sometimes you have an answer; but mostly, like fiction

you just wish for a magic wand to turn the tables

on this alien space in your own land of contradictions.

And in that moment when faced with those

dreaded questions, sweat breaks out,

Karna's curse kicks in: the word, the phrase,

the idiom you long to shout 

Memorized, frozen

on the edge of your mind

paralyzed by first-language interference

You seek and search but fail to find --

And once more the mind is colonized

by the hope of a better day:

In a better someplace

In a mad bid to escape, run away,

from a mundane, dreary existence devoid of

the power to raise you from the cesspool of pelf --

And disguised this time as the flight to

the land of opportunity:  History repeats itself.