La Canción de los Hipopótamos

Pepe was no foreigner.
He was born in Columbia
to slave parents purchased from
merchants in the United States
for the amusement of
Pablo Escobar and his guests
at Hacienda Napoles,
a pompous pleasure palace
in the Columbian countryside.
All that blow going up disco noses,
creating fleeting moments
of chemical paradise.
All that cash coming back
to Pablo Escobar.
It had to end ugly and it did.
How else would it go down?
Everybody took what they could
and disappeared.
And then, Pepe was free.
Pepe disappeared too.
He took a bride into the jungle.
They ran for freedom.
They lived like their African ancestors.
They had a kid, born in freedom.
It was paradise, without the chemicals.
Pepe was no foreigner,
but he was a stranger.
A couple of car salesmen from town
came on safari with a small army
to watch their back.
That’s how Pepe died.
Car salesmen gunned him down
in the Columbian jungle.
But, there are still hippos out there
in the wild.
Pablo Escobar’s hippos are free.

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