Vox Populi
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Pablo Otavalo: You Wake Up
for Gregor Samsa
and one day you are a vermin. And
your brother a vermin
and your son is a vermin. And he loses his job
and can’t get out of bed. And you
wake up walking
across a desert. A checkpoint
for vermin. A dangerous fool
reads a book to a crowd
that you are snakes. That your family
should die in a river. Or under
a house or they say you are rats. You wake up
stateless
against a wall or a fence. And they throw
apples
at your wounded body. While it’s a nice day
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Pablo Otavalo
Pablo Otavalo is from Cuenca, Ecuador, and now lives and writes in Illinois. A recipient of the 2013 and 2014 Illinois Emerging Writers Competition prize, his work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, RHINO Poetry and other publications. He says, “We must find what we revere in each other.”
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In so few words it manages to so it all. And it has always been thus. There is always ‘the other’, isn’t there? Does that make them feel better?
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The fascists depend on our being afraid.
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This poem goes all the way in. It makes me want to very intentionally find ways to honor the humanness of everyone I interact with. Wow, Pablo Otavalo. Thank you.
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O my… 😑🌫️😭🔮💔
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Once they make you less than human, thou shalt not kill no longer applies. Lose your humanity by being poor or by how you worship a god or whatever is useful.
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Exactly.
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I like this poem for its relevance to the current political climate in the United States. Immigrants are being targeted in this country for abuse, deportation and imprisonment for no reason at all. Make no mistake, none of us is safe as long as fascists are in control of the government.
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Fascists always need a scapegoat upon whom to cast blame, (and divert negative attention that otherwise might focus on their own deeds). Immigrants have become a central scapegoat, or a fascist vermin of choice, so to speak. Not just in the U.S.A. either. Defining a human scapegoat as less than human has always been a strategy for domination., not just of the scapegoated, but also the remainder of a society. Otavalo nails this beautifully in his poem.
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Exactly, Jim. Thank you for your clarity.
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