Marabuntas Marching

They come from the darker corners;
from the shadows of the streets.
The places where the darker realities
of humanity creeps.


The marabuntas marching;
with a penchant for violence
of infamous renown.
Membership ensures a life
for them to own.

The marabuntas marching;
while speaking a portmanteau language,
derived from Spanish and English.
A perfected and well-developed language system they relish.

The marabuntas marching;
organizing themselves in groups,
called cliques and fractions.
Each with a certain fatal attraction.

The marabuntas marching;
with intent to recruit our young.
An organized hierarchy,
hell-bent on controlled chaos and structured
Anarchy.

The marabuntas marching;
and feeding off the easily influenced,
who become pawns of their merciless way.
More cold bodies for them to throw-away.

The marabuntas marching;
onward with their own method of governance,
with their own methods of punishment-
a horrific way of maiming,
by skills acquired by guerilla-military training.

The marabuntas marching;
and reminding us all of their presence,
with their well established pecking order.
Throwing signs, stacking, and check-courting,
always their way of retorting.

The marabuntas marching;
recruiting, trafficking, contract killing, selling,
jumping, harassing, organizing, planning,
and ever expanding.
You had better "trucha"
Here comes Mara Salvatrucha………

To take yet another child from me today

Oscar, Felipe, Tom, Juan, Jose, Miquel, Troy, Sam, Carlos,
Veronica, Jesus, Jasmine, Darnell, Sharley, T.J. Alex,
Fernando, Dante……..

Here comes Mara Salvatrucha
To take another child from me today;
to take another child from us today.

How many children of ours will be gone tomorrow?
Next week? Next Year?
Much too many, I fear….

Here comes Mara Salvatrucha
to falsely promise our children a good life,
one wrought with strife.

Here comes Mara Salvatrucha
to take another life

And the marabuntas go marching on by………………….

Copyright © 2010 L.Warren

(this is a poem inspired by the life circumstances many of my students have found themselves in)