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The American-Indian Political Action
Committee
(In the Beginning) By CHARLES ORLOSKI
Sitting Bulldozer ... Okay. Let's practice speech one more
time.
Kosher Horse ... Okay. But you speak-um first! And me pretend
I am important pale-face from Manhattan.
Sitting Bulldozer ... Okay, Kosher Horse -- The white man are
such nice people!
Kosher Horse ... Yeah. Especially Custer. Too bad he get massacre
at Little Big Horn. Once I look him in eye, and me think him
can do business with Indian. General Custer was "man of
peace," and deserves big white-man award!
Sitting Bulldozer ... Yeah. But mebbe Custer should have taken
our trinkets, and went home big hero, with full benefits.
Kosher Horse ... Hmm. Mebbe Indian can get Christian support?
We have solid base with Joseph Smith who likes us when Indian
behave according to his Great Spirit book.
Sitting Bulldozer ... No, Kosher Horse! Other Christians no
like Joseph Smith. He take too many wives, and white-man send
long-knives after him! He pack up tee-pee and move to Susquehanna,
Pennsylvania, with him in-laws.
Kosher Horse ... Mebbe President Buchanan have young son willing
to subvert Manifest Destiny in Indian favor?
Sitting Bulldozer ... Hmm. Me think Buchanan bachelor, and
him have only one daughter, living in former Iroquois territory.
Kosher Horse ... Mebbe we can get her to make "land for
peace" deal?
Sitting Bulldozer ... Nah. She too high-toned for that, and
want too many trinkets for that type deal. Indian better off
talking with Mitt.
Indian can supply squaw & cheap labor to complete Big Boston
Dig!
Kosher Horse ... Hmm. Mebbe we can convince long-knives that
Indian really is lost tribe of Israel?
Sitting Bulldozer ... Hmm. You on to something, Kosher Horse!
Mebbe they let Indian speak with Abramoff, and him get us casino
at
Traveling Stone.
Kosher Horse ... Is that all? Indian want honorary massacre
museum on West Bank of Potomac too!
Sitting Bulldozer ... Hmm. You go out on limb, Kosher Horse!
But a wise man must never be afraid to ask.
Fuck your "shock and distress"
false
Display of feined dismay
At death disaster and decay
Fuck your UN moral-ised
Publicised stance, merry dance
Of words that bow to circumstance
Fuck your stinking attitude
of gratitude
For diplomatic servitude
Whilst death intrudes on life
Fuck this theatrical barbarical
Unilateral act of farcical
Response, so bad it,s laughable
Fuck this pretence of humanity
Fuck this ignorance of reality
Fuck this totality
Fuck this idiotic patriotic
Vitriolic dialogue
By spinning cogs
And demi-gods
In UN office blocks
Fuck this art of diplomacy
Negotiated greedily
In sound bitten media-cy
Fuck this distraction
From the action of mothers driven
To destruction
Holding shrapnel ridden
Babies
Screeching screaming wailing daily
Caught within the web of war
Little lives that smile no more
Families ripped and torn
Hatred fuelled and hatred born
We sit in his immaculate room
The Crystal Ballroom
where he should be dancing
round and round
every night
forever.
Instead
he complains,
the hour endless.
He takes out his rings
his ornate glass
like an old coquette:
who wants which
who gets what.
So-and-so will get after all
the headless Rape of the Sabines.
I cannot bring joy to this
room.
I hold out an empty plate.
I know that I should
turn the conversation.
I who can never say
I could say You are feeling bitter.
I know it is frustration and pain
that speaks these negatives:
this place like a prison
all the ones you hate,
and outside those others you blame
including me.
II
Give me a "D."
for diarrhea.
I bring bananas and juice today,
enter the room
cheerleader lips prepared:
how well you do
the benefits of
this or that food
this or that pill.
But I hesitate.
I see your pain,
side effect of the poison you take,
as you haltingly cross the room.
A hug is far better
than this jumping up and down.
Robert A. Davies lives in Portland,
Oregon. He can be reached at: rjdavies@spiritone.com
Creation Pain:
Sonnet to Beginning
By ADAM ENGEL
A billion yesterdays gurgled
"Sun. Sun. Sun" before
the Then inside our Now shocked shadow-voiced phantasms to howl
pain of a City's ruin: Cosmic Ur-moment when Then corrupted Now.
Remember unwashed scholars, whores: rank streets; thrum of exchange.
"I lived for a time before
our Time, in a city so old we called it 'Mine.'
All that's solid melts to ectoplasm, warm as cloth, material;
insisting
all performances of antic imperative be repeated,
correctly, completely, as often as needed to maintain 'Law.'"
I confused the long-ago-past
Mine
with the immediate rush of a bus -- not mine --
adorned with advertisements, warnings, logos of the Now:
"Don't look; keep moving; haven't time."
New creations, mucosal, slick,
slimy, emerge from hummus, loam, decay.
Gummy maws suck new development: not definition: food. Aroma.
Rhythm.
CounterPunch
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