Sunday poetry

fall out

they are closing the auto plants
out here in California
but a major company is promising
employment to laid-off workers
who will transfer to an Oklahoma
plant
travel expenses
paid.

so now
many of the families are
making the trek
in long caravans of cars
full of children and
possessions

just as in the 30's
their elders had come here
from Oklahoma
in the same way

now they're going back
to Oklahoma
with California accents

Grandchildren of the
Dust Bowl

because Japanese cars are
smaller, cheaper,
better

it's like a little bit of
Hiroshima
in return

or a Japanese horror
movie
with an all-American
cast.

~ Charles Bukowski, War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984