Oh America, Where Art Thou?
In the Beginning ...
There was a shrieking sound
Rising from the plaint of
The powerless in the face of
The burning Sun,
Terrifying them.
They fled to caves
As the glowing moon
Rose and the owl screeched
And nocturnal carnivores ate the
Stragglers, the lame and
The young.
During the light of day
They warred against helplessness
In holy feasts and massacres
And at night did
Sacrifices and mad dances
In the roaring heat of their captured Sun.
They are called barbarians and savages.
In wars of land and loot conquest,
In merchandising slavery,
They became powerful over
Others who walked like them.
They proclaimed themselves anew
In sermon praises of a
New sunlit day.
'A God,' they cried out,
Bowing before an
Anointed one,
The strongest one,
The most weaponed one,
The richest one,
For possession of land
And gold
Was deification.
The Earth over
They wrote their myths and
Grew their religions,
Until humankind was but
Servant to them.
In the White Man's world
They soon costumed themselves
In the role of Merchant, Banker,
Corporate Mover, Shaker,
Tithing for yet another
Missionary seminary
Of leaders girding their loins
In their latest, contrived
World wide, alabaster,
Holy Christian War.
Do you not see
The dying entrails of Enron
Snaking through the Bushes of Eden?
Do you doubt:
As the mammoth machines
Of Halliburton reconstructed,
Under Cheney's watchful eyes,
Vast Asian battlefields
Of the last war's millions dead.
As he and Bush pave
A new and sandy path
For petroleum's
Snaking pipeline desert route
Through Afghanistan?
As our Crusade saved
The oil lost in the
Desert Storm,
And our soldiers came
Home dying of a new rot
In their bodies,
Denied by the very
Corporate government
Who created it and
Sent it and them there.
Blinded by the glistening,
Rolling, white zealot's eyes of
The avenging Sword bearer Ashcroft,
---Who amidst singing the most pale of
Fundamental nasal-tenor serene hymns,
---Eerily stayed attuned to
This new Leader's Serpentine hiss,
'Terroristsssssssss.'
And suddenly,
All our nation has gone silent as
The steel barred gates of
Executive fiat crash down like
Crusader's sword thrusts
And the Network Executives hatchet
For rating points
Our First Amendment Right to know of our
Elected's documented Wheels and Deals
As we now know of the
Paranoid Nixon-Graham epithets
Swearing at, and conspiring against,
The unchristian rabble who they feared
Would surround and devour them
As in days of yore.
It hisses forth now that we are
Suspects all...'terroristssssss'
Oh, America, Nation that I love,
This is not the War to End Terrorism
But the war of Corporate Capital,
Masqueraded in
The Savior's patriot-uniform
Adorned with plastic-colored,
Neon crosses,
Marching to military hymn's
Sang by every
TV Sunday morning,
Gospel weaving
Bible hawker,
Out to eat our hearts and minds
Like sacrifices of old.
'Terroristssssssssss!'
Hunting them down. Drowning them,
Torching them as pyre kindling
Akin to that what made
The ashes of Salem and
St. Joan fill the sky.
'Heathens, pagans, barbarians,
rabble-rousers, Devil, Shaman,
Infidel, Atheist.'
History records
The never-ending
Victim litany of these
Hypocrites.
Oh, and less we forget,
The seventy years of
'Communist Antichrists,'
Who, they raved, were coming
To eat our young at dinnertime,
Terrorizing those, that is,
That were not
Driven from their homes and country
As outcasts and traitors for
Opposing the predecessors
Of the Corporate Killing Machine
That lives today.
And today,
The names of the suspects
Have changed.
Today it is Militants, Radicals.
And did I remember to mention,
'Evil Doers?'
Next, they will place
Black and white headshots of
Revolutionaries Wanted Dead or Alive
Next to the Ten Commandments
In every school hallway.
Like our history,
We have been stolen,
Kidnapped, held hostage.
Our armor of inalienable honor
Pierced as if by U-238 projectiles.
They are cynical barbarians dressed
In Brooks Brothers' Khaki camouflage,
Who, now armed with the omnipotent power
Of an unthinkable war of nuclear first strike,
Go on the Crusade of the Righteous One,
Against the peasants of The World of color,
Raving in sermon and blood letting.
They have taken power
For someone in alarm
Had screamed:
'Because of Bill Clinton,
There will be a Nigger in
The White House.'
And a Sentry of the Right said,
'Not until they pry
This gun from my
Cold, dead fingers.'
'Then Mullahs ruling
The Temple Mount!'
Another shouted.
'Not until this
Uzi falls empty
Across my dead
Child's chest.'
'Shalom,' wailed
A friend of a
Hollywood Democrat,
His head banging
Against The Wall
Drowning out
The gavel sounds
Of Nuremberg
And the
Blinding, stark,
Reminiscent
Black and white
Photographic images
Of Jews being rounded-up
In the ghettos of Warsaw.
Just like Palestinians
From Jenin.
Published:
The Chapbook:
OH AMERICA, WHERE ART THOU?
04-14-02 SC. ©