O AMERICA, AMERICA
I’m sick and tired of
psychopaths from sea to shining sea using AR15s to massacre
close to 20 patrons at a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine
and 11
Asian Americans celebrating a Lunar New Year Festival
in Monterey Park, California
and of
domestic terrorists using assault firearms to execute those
at Orlando, Florida nightclub for dancing while gay
and 23
Walmart customers in El Paso, Texas, for looking
like the illegal aliens President Trump had
said were invading our country,
and 11
people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg for
worshiping while being Jews,
and 10
people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York for
shopping while black,
and of
deranged AR-15 gunmen riddling the little bodies of 20
Sandy Hook elementary school kids in Newtown, Connecticut
and 19 Robb elementary school kids in Uvalde, Texas
with bullet blasts from rapid fire combat rifles
O America, America
I’m sick and tired of you having more
gun fatalities in a day than
Japan has in a year
and more people killed with guns in an average
week than in all of Western Europe in a year
So sick and tired
sick and tired
sick and tired
of being sick and tired
O America, America
When will you love your children
more than you love your guns?
When will you beat your assault rifles
into plowshares
and your semiautomatic handguns
into pruning hooks?
When will you be
from sea to shining sea
the land of the free?
DECOLONIZE THIS POEM
“Decolonization or Extinction”—Elena Gomez,
The Red Nation
De-Columbus Day this poem
America wasn’t discovered
It was invaded and colonized
De-Thanksgiving Day this poem
Don’t get this poem wrong, it is thankful for
family feasts and get togethers with friends
but does not give thanks for the genocide,
stolen Indigenous land, plantation and textile
mill wage slavery labor on which was BUILT
the wealth of our early nation
This poem acknowledges it was composed
on the occupied ancestral homeland
of the Tongva people
De-canonize Junípero Serra
A saint he ain’t
The first peoples of Los Angeles needed
to be saved from colonialism,
NOT from the imaginary flames of a hell
with which this "Apostle of California"
threatened them unless they
closed their eyes, bowed their heads
and accepted his blue-eyed, European
Christ as their lord and savior
This poem views the world through the eyes
of the colonized whether they be those of Jews
and Anglo-Saxons under domination of Rome
in ancient times or those of the Indigenous
under that of the U. S. and Canada or
Palestinians under that of Israel today
De-militarize this poem
Like Dwight Eisenhower said,
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed”
De-propagandize this poem
As Malcolm X warned, “If you aren't careful, the media
will have you hating the people who are being oppressed
and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”
De-carbonize this poem
Stop sending greenhouse gas shit into Father Sky
and using Mother Earth’s land and bodies of
waters to dump electronic waste, single use
plastic bags, straws and soda cups
Cease clearcutting old growth trees
and tropical rainforests for more—
palm oil in shampoo,
barbecue bacon double cheeseburgers
to stuff corpulent settler colonialists,
fiber pulp to manufacture—
toilet paper,
junk mail,
Amazon books,
and computer printer paper upon
which this poem was typed along with
the poet’s grocery shopping list
handwritten on the back
This poem like the poet who wrote it
and those who hear and/or read it
ARE a part of nature
NOT separate from it
and thus one strand in the web of life
currently threatened by the sixth
mass extinction
De-commodify this poemIt has value
even if it doesn’t add one cent to further
wealth accumulation of richest 1%
De-privatize this poem
and re-communalize it
As Roque Dalton has said, ”
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan,
de todos.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread,
is for everyone.
THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE*
2000 pound bomb,
paid for by our tax dollars has
her name along with those
of the rest of her family
written on it,
levels
their Gaza City apartment building
Within debris shadows,
glimpse
of light emerges.
“When they shelled us with the second missile,
I woke up and was surrounded by rubble.
I realized that my leg had been cut off,
because there was blood and I had no leg.
“I tried to move it, but it wouldn’t move.
My father and mother were martyred.
My brother Mohammad and my sister Dalia also.
“I want someone to take me abroad,
to any country, to install a prosthetic leg,
to be able to walk like other people,
so that I can move and go out
and play with other kids.
“I want to become a doctor, like
those who treat us, so that
I can treat other children.
I only want one thing:
for the war to end.”
On December 17th,
shell in Israel tank gun
paid for by our tax dollars
with name of 12 year old girl
recovering in Gaza hospital
written on it,
is fired—
Peace be upon you,
Dunia Abu Mosen
May all who have witnessed
that little light of yours—
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
* From the news story, “Absolutely Unimaginable”:
Children in Gaza Face Amputations Without Anesthesia,
Death & Disease, DEMOCRACY NOW, DECEMBER 28, 2023
