Sir David and the Green Card: A Modern Quest

By David Davies

Sir David and the Green Card maps a journey through the twists of today's U.S. immigration system, with all its surreal demands and medieval burdens. From a dark beginning in cold British traffic to the seared highways of California, these poems recount a ten-year quest for permanence and the motley characters - real and imagined - met along the way. Join a vibrant tour through machinery suspected-yet-unknown, a story of remaining human inside political scaffolding, and a scrutiny of the complex privilege of navigating it all as an English-speaker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jul 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666779073

David Davies

David Davies has been writing since he left home. His poems have appeared in diverse places, including Rise Up Review, Granfalloon, Green Lantern Press and The Other Side Of Hope. He is the recipient of a 2022 Colorado Book Award and has twice won the King Edward Prize for Youth Poetry.

Book preview

Contents

An Invitation

The Journey Begins …

An Unilluminated Manuscript

Im-mi-grant | Vi-sas

Severed love

A Summons to the Castle

Courage on the field

The Riddle Game

The Ones Who Move

Vexillology

Awaiting a Messenger

This Too Shall Pass

A Magical Flight

Into The Heart Of A City

The Song of the Foreign Knight

Our Hero Struggles To Comprehend The Marvels Around Him

We Choose Our Own History

The Production Line

The Knight Comes To Know Physic

The King’s Promise

The Foreseeable Future

Revolutions of the Sun

A First Meeting with Our Lady of Holy Death

In a Hidden Valley

The Tower

A Faceless God Attempts to Drive Our Hero to Madness

Not Finding a Ghost

The Arts of Combat

Portraits of Landscapes

The Movement Of Texan Seasons

The Warrior is Vexed by Jealousy

The Knight Errant, the Errant knight

Our Hero Convinces No One

The Wanderer Seeks Only an Allegory

A Second Meeting with Our Lady of Holy Death

Our Champion Watches The Building Of A New Continent

A Short Adventure in a Tavern

Our Hero Considers the Decline of the Chivalrous Life

Deploy the Accent

The Subject Wonders Where He Belongs

Is a Jest Easier Than a Truth?

Our Player Frets That the End is Nigh

Cancelled Without Prejudice

Our Champion Struggles with Doubts (Don’t We All?)

The Knight Reappears for an Uncomfortable Stay

Eternal Return

Mummers Play

A Final Meeting With Our Lady Of Holy Death

An Invitation

So now: listen while I recount this tale

of a soul who sought life beyond his lands,

slipping from the near shores, where once he crawled,

to foreign climes, a country where speech sounds the same

but meanings change, alignments veer,

intentions slip and shift.

Watch feckless gods weigh out each destiny,

while their officials quarrel over process.

See a young saint sneak her way inside a church!

But can the knight of this quest grasp his grail?

Do you think to yourself: I wish he could!

Or do you think: I fear that he will not.

What made this venturer leave his home, his life,

give up the comforts close, the easy conveniences,

and seek his fortune in a foreign place?

Righteousness? Prosperity? Pleasure? Love?

Is self-improvement fallen far from grace?

Adventurous traits, unfashionable these days.

Yet either way, this wayward twisted yarn

stitches together truths only slightly stretched,

embroidered a little, but held on a sound tapestry,

a banner hanging on a castle fluttering in a storm.

Read on. And if some parts seem destined to confuse,

absurd, opaque, designed to cause some puzzlement;

welcome to the U.S. immigration system.

The Journey Begins …

Every quest starts with a lady.

Like many, this one starts at night.

As usual, we’re stopped in a line of traffic.

Glancing around, the car windows look black,

streaked outside with the icy winter rain,

blown within fog-free by stale air,

while beyond the glass – and beyond, and beyond –

red brake lights glare in at us

above the fumes of burning fuel.

There is a lady beside me,

trying to warm her white hands

in the feeble blowing of the vents,

lost in the coarse wool of a winter coat,

hair flattened by a hat,

a long scarf smothering her neck,

hiding any elegance in its dense folds.

Black in the blackness, high hedgerows

line each side of the congested country road.

The unending drizzle makes tarmac

reflect thick and sticky in the lights.

The night this far north comes mid-afternoon,

and stops any sunbeam

before it dares to break a cloud.

The lady beside me is ready to voice my quest.

The setting – in media res – is proper,

the red lamps in her eyes are flames;

she turns them to me, glowing in the void

above the wrapping of her shawl.

We should live somewhere else, she sighs.

It is an uncertain inauguration,

lacking in flourish and poetic chivalry.

But my mind travels fast over oceans,

then deposits me in lands under the absent sun,

smells and sounds from pirate tales I grew too old to read;

it’s easy to dream quickly

when you’re stuck in traffic.

This is awful, she speaks on.

And her voice pulls me back to the dark glass,

to the strings of dirty raindrops

smearing the choked lights beyond,

to the dull roar of the fan’s air

barely taking an edge off the chill.

Where were you thinking? I ask.

An Unilluminated Manuscript

The pages are scattered