I wrote the first version of this poem in 2000 as a response to the Columbine shootings. It was an attempt to draw the connect between the U.S. culture of mass shootings to the country's history of conquest through murder and brutality. I believed then, as I believe now that when you found a nation on genocide you can only expect those who grow from it to engender violent impulses. I had hoped that 12 years later this poem would no longer be relevant.
…Paroxysm of
rifle shells spilled onto cafeteria floor emit steam,
delivering
epiphanies swiftly like a microscopic aftershock
from a rock
tossed in a lake causing ripples in time.
The cries
cripple ancient spirits. Newspapers rape
a mother’s
cries for the
sake of headline glory.
Stories of
children who spent the evening air
summoning
psychic ghosts to deliver them
answers to
their math tests are soon running frozen,
screaming,
chosen to be
locked inside their own
icandescent
terror as film strewn upon a newsroom floor.
Horror
coalesces into hip fantasies.
Film producers
seduce grieving parents in a mission
to obtain
copyright permission.
Websites are
shrines built to worship chaos in cold steel,
fired with a
click-click from the finger of sick children
picked on one
too many times in the back of class.
Decadent
demagogues in decades hence will
deify these two
as defiant descendants of the conquerors
demanding your
surrender as shots ring out,
sting ears, castrate
compassion,
orchestrating
an ode to the Big Bang
as the hollow
children take aim and squeeze…
And in the
distance
For one instance
Echoing from
inside their hollow shells
The
dancingearthchildren whisper prophecies the conqueror never tells
Bellowing
“We will rise we
will rise
To stare right
through into the whites of your eyes
We will rise we
will rise
To peel off the
lies in which you disguise
We will last we
will last
Long enough to
erase you with your own past
We will last we
will last
To bury you
inside the images that you cast”
And in the
distance for one instance silence precludes a shotgun blast…
…Blown
away like minds in altered states
or winds
traveling east to sweep
away
the blood and
filth of the nation state.
The
benevolent equate their catatonia
to a
utopia concealed by the commotion picture industry.
They
steal feeling through B-rated movies
Moving
as real ammunition,
spinning
in lieu of reels of film
where parents
place blame on video games
and
the Squalor of rock stars
who
are themselves merely slaves,
though
it is the structures they’ve built
from
power and profit
that
carve out their children’s graves.
Jump
cut to two specters
making
jest of death as they watch smoke
from
their barrels rise into vents to chase spirits
sent
from dimensions mentioned in ancient hieroglyphs.
Guitar
riffs mimic the madness of corpses
constructed
into monoliths honoring
the
bloodlustful cores of conquistadors liquidating
5000
years of indigenous folklore.
Across
cafeteria floors prosperity sifts
through
spilled milk cartons,
consummates
with blood dripping
as two
intersecting rivers, slipping like an arrow
plucked
from its quiver to penetrate
the
throats of rebellious chiefs protecting
the
tribe from false beliefs and assimilation
as the
hammer is cocked and released
to relieve
more incarnations of their sentient duties
(And
just yesterday they were
Running
around courtyards
Giving
one another cooties).
Bodies
slump to earth like an ice cream cone
Dumped
on concrete by a child’s misguided
sense
of worth. Hollowness of shotgun barrels
Pierce
their blank stares,
Inducing
the virus as these monsters cheer
at the
violence they have pioneered in laboratories.
Labyrinth
of hallways now decorated with innocent gore
lead
the survivors to a a vast landfill of
executed martyrs,
speared
from the rear by another’s obsession with possession,
Ensnared
in a false past,
fastened
to fly paper,
collecting
events of oppression and rule,
because
murder be oh so cool
where
nothing escapes but the smell
of
revisionist history covering up
the
misery displayed as a mural of splattered brain matter…
And in the
distance
For one instance
Right before
their hollow shells shatter
The
dancingearthchildren whisper prophecies the conqueror never tells
And they chatter
“We will rise we
will rise
To stare right
through into the whites of your eyes
We will rise we
will rise
To peel off the
lies in which you disguise
We will last we
will last
Long enough to
erase you with your own past
We will last we
will last
To bury you
inside the images that you cast”
And in the
distance for one instance silence precludes a shotgun blast…
…As any trace
of aura escapes
through social
studies books
marked in red
tape, and bullet
holes distributed
by dictators
in a
benediction of hate.
Squandered
spirits seeking outward,
confronted by
illusions that fame
has caught them
in a contusion of preemptive
memorials to their
laconic destiny.
The atomic
density of the holes
in their esteem
expand become
steam
dissipating into a lost sunbeam.
Trapped in a
post-mortem dream,
joined by a
team of cult images
their parents permitted
them to admire,
they serve as
self-appointed judge and executioner,
Take aim, squeeze,
and fire
at their jury
in a fury of pellets sprayed
as the dismayed
fade in the gleam
of girls who
hold prom queen dreams,
vanquishing
obscene visions
adrift in
hollow barrels of self appointed
gods giving
guns to toddlers in place of chocolates.
Culture of
conquest decimates itself
with decimal
points placed on
tax forms as an
illness of madness
represented in
fresh gun clips.
Ships traveling
westward forget to look inward,
predict the
fate of the wilderness children.
Their souls
swarm like locusts
unconsciously
around and around.
No sound is
heard as bullet
hole becomes
black hole of corruption
pulling all
light away from their insides
As death
callously rides, cracking
his whipped
with sadistic pleasure
as the distance
that’s measured
between
orbiting stars and musical bars,
between my
voice and your mind,
between vision
and the blind,
this distance
between us grows wide
as swiftly
death rides to collect the fallen.
He envelopes a
school teacher
Reaching up to
breach the security
of the eyes
that are the cause of his demise
to see if there
is any empathy left from which
to make Clarity
or Purity or Purpose of their lives,
Only to find
nothing as the
Beginning of
the end arrives.
Time unbends. Wise
elders rise from lost
songs to finally
apprehend those who pretend and…
In the distance
For one instance
The tide of
struggle shifts from low to high
The
dancingearthchildren haunt the conquerors with guilt and truth
As they taunt and
they sigh
“We will rise we
will rise
To stare right
through into the whites of your eyes
We will rise we
will rise
To peel off the
lies in which you disguise
We will last we
will last
Long enough to
erase you with your own past
We will last we
will last
To bury you
inside the images that you cast”
And in the
distance for one instance silence precludes a shotgun blast…
They now direct
the barrel inward
as if to seek
out what was taken from their
by their colonizers
long before they wore this frame.
Their hollow
eyes slip into hollow barrel
to see blindly
the conquistadors effigy
left behind as
eulogy like
shadows of
forgotten daughters
permanently
suffused to wrecked walls
at Nagasaki
stung by the taste of atomic slaughter.
These spoiled
hellions act
Impressed with
themselves for prophecies misread
That have
mislead their hollow shelled descendants
into a sinkhole
of imperial destruction.
The virus
spread finally to itself.
The void
consuming itself in celebration.
Only the
anticipation of a muscle
contracted
around trigger remains
for blankness
inherited over
light years to
hold residence and dominate
dimension space
and color with its illness
as form resists
to exist in the emptiness that surrounds it.
The offspring
driven to a collective apathy
by cause and
effect of celestial parasitism.
Only a cataclysm
of this last hollow shell
remains to sterilize
and infest while
hollow barrel
is pressed against
hollow skull. Below
phony phantoms
Peer and salivate
as barrel is raised
to once and for
all eliminate the disease,
Their fingers writhe
like snakes
coiled around
the tree of solidarity
as they surrender,
take aim, and squeeze…
And on the
horizon
The rising sun
Silences screams
Resurrecting
Dreams
As the
dancingearthchildren are heard chanting
Recanting their
past as a lesson stressing
“We will rise we
will rise
From our graves
to avenge slaves to whom you denied
Freedom to
resurrect neglected souls that you pacified
As the last holy
war begins
Extinguishing the
sins
And the people
that you chained are finally unified
They will break
way into the wilderness
And let out a
battle cry screaming
‘We will rise we
will rise we will rise we will rise
We will last we
will last we will last we will last’”
And in the distance
For one instance
The sound of children’s
laughter silences a shotgun blast…
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