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Efren Petalver Carranza
The Victims
Who are those that stand by the pillars
Of stop signs or in front of liquor stores?
Are they the forgotten heroes who were once
Served and sent to wars for this country?
Or, are they the victims of social users incense
Of illegal drugs, alcohol, or sex for money?
Who are they?
Are they the victims of our country's economy,
Who lost their jobs outsourced by their company?
Or, are they the victims of love losing their sanity
By rape, battery, or purely the victims of poverty?
Who are they?
That I can no longer pull change from my coin tray;
That I can no longer look at them with eye to eye;
That I can no longer put faith or minute of honesty;
For I was also their victim of their luscious trickery.
Comments about this poem (The Victims by Efren Petalver Carranza )
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Poet's Notes about The Poem
Last Friday [06/03/2012], to make my FB friends laugh I posted what was Efren Petalver Carranza has in mind:
Allergy! Supposedly gone with the rain but it didn't. I have been sneezing louder than our VP does, and then I realized @4: 30 PM it was my job that I was allergic to. TGIF
And it followed by: My computer made my finger faster before it could think. I never thought that it could also be lazier than me. The mouse keeps on playing in circle after hiding and eating crumbs on my keyboard. Indeed, 'when the cat is away, the mouse will play.' Have a good day at work or reading intrigues and graffiti on your FB walls.
Last night [06/05/2011], I dreamt our VP Finance telling me: "next year don't ever go to casino anymore." This dream might have been sub-conscious result from my sleepless night thinking of my job to be transitioned to Texas on 2012.
Today, I've seen the same man, from last Friday, standing by the post of stop sign in a four-way traffic holding same old cardboard that reads: "I lost my job, my car, and my home…..and it could have been worst if this is you."
What more could I have given to this man when I have a combined pity and distrust, for I have seen many of them?
When my wife and I used to drive 75 miles from Stockton to work in Fremont, we saw one man, wearing of some kind of uniform, parked his car along the side road in about a mile and a half to the freeway entrance. The hood was open and he's holding a cardboard that reads: "run out of gas and I forgot my wallet at work…." And then after a week same man was park on a different location…really?
Yet, not all of them are! But who are the true victims whom we can pinpoint to put our hard-earned-cash into one's hand who needed it most?
My wife's testimony though was a very touchy one. It happened years ago, when my wife and my oldest son were on their way home from mall, her car won't start. Two men approached my wife and helped her jumpstart her car. After my wife thanked them, the men left and my wife said to her son: "Maybe the like your mom because she is pretty, ha? " And my son replied, "Mom, do you remember the man, who has no legs, and you gave him a dollar? Those two men are angels to payback your kindness. Indeed, no one knows who are in need. But sometimes, we are tried in many ways by God.