Seeking a path to critical refinement
I chanced upon a mentor
Antonio
His ink flowing Blood from Il Duce’s dungeons
You’re a product of history, he said
Find thyself in its infinite traces
Take inventory
Laboriously searching
Ledger in hand
I find myself present in the seedling of an empire
Midnight Manhattan 1643
Refugee Lenape
Women, children, men
Limbs hacked
Torsos impaled
Sizzling screaming pyres Light up the night
“Freed black men” Till this scorched earth among ghosts unsettled
A Two-Thousand-foot palisade
Sharpened oak posts Separates white settlers from their crime scene
Wall Street
Mankato Minnesota 1862
38 Dakota drop simultaneously
From the white man’s scaffold
Warrior Souls driven to the earth neath stretched necks
Cry out Call us in prayer
We’ll return
Hearing them
Lakota In holy shirts
Pray
Dance
Sing
Frightened
The white man replies
The tongue of mechanized gunfire
Bapp bapp bapp bapp bapp bapp bapp
This land is our land
God’s Doctrine
Discovery
FAFO
Denver City 1864
Good citizens howl
Exterminate them! Exterminate them!
At Sand Creek
Six-hundred Cheyenne, Arapaho
Women Children the Aged the infirm
Butchered
Breasts Genitalia
Souvenirs taken by Colorado’s Bloody 3rd
Camped on the River of Talking Stones
An Oceti Sakowin cajoled
Wake up my relatives
You two-legged
You who walk on all four
You who fly through the sky
Swim in the water
Slither
Creepy crawl
Come greet the sun
Pray
Give thanks
Smoke to the four winds
Ask the creator for strength
Stop the evil DAPL black snake
As I stand near the abutment
Prehistoric orbs bearing me witness from below the torrent
A burned-out carcass
Military surplus truck barricades the bridge
Speaking volumes
Before me
Behind razor wire
Men with automatic weapons
LRADS
Bullhorns
Stand in fear
Three hundred women in prayer
Water protector warriors burning incense
Threaten a corrupted conscience
Hegemony
National Security
Antonio’s infinite traces Coalesced
My ledger confirmed a deficit
An incompleteness
My “Gangster of Capitalism” world view shortcoming
The wretched of the earth have borne the brunt
My race’s sins
Inequity insult abuse indifference
imperial war ethnic cleansing genocide
The oppressed have little need for my opinion
Their liberation precedes mine
To them I offer remittance
Eyes ears tongue hands heart
To be paid
On the front lines of their liberation
My Protective Presence
