Terrorist Table: Part II
March 1st, l999
Eight tourists dead in Congo,
Uganda, Rwanda, Hutu, Tutsis.
Gorillas in the Mist;
Dian Fossey: blood sister with Congo soil.
Death penetrated Bwindi's Impenetrable Forest.
Two Yanks,
Four Brits,
One Aussie,
One Swiss,
One game warden,
Three park rangers,
Three missing,
Six flown to Entebbe Airport
still wet with Hebrew Blood
from another decade in our time.
Congo Death
Clubs and machetes and whistles
turn dawn into darkness;
Beating and slashing
light from the eyes of life.
In the rest of the world the news is:
Y2K and computer crashes,
and who will sue who for what and how much:
thicker mascara for my lashes:
The Mark, The Pound, and The Dollar,
Monica, Clinton and Starr,
Hillary for Senate,
and how to make more money,
Middle Class, Academy Awards,
Medicare, HMO's and un-safe 4 wheel drive land rovers.
and to air bag or not to air bag your car.
Somehow we will never "Come A Long Way Baby."
It is difficult to believe in the goodness of man
while walking in the badness of his wake.
This death list will never end
on this earth that we have so intently formed.
Ethnic Cleansing is no respecter or persons:
It is only a matter of time before the tide changes
and the Cleansor becomes the Cleansee.
Serbia: Yugoslavia: Albania:
Armenia: Turkey: Kosovo:
Wrath, Retaliation, Retribution:
The boulders in the soul's path
toward Rehabilitation.
Landmines
Eternal random maimings and murders.
Animal Rights seeks to outlaw clamp-shut traps
for wolves, raccoons, minks, foxes and the like
because the devices indiscriminately and without warning
snap shut on the poor unsuspecting animals;
sometimes even the trapper's good hunting dog
causing pain or slow death more than due.
The United States needs landmines:
military regulation explosive 'snap-shut' traps.
The US was the only nation voting against the referendum
in the assembly of The United Nations,
whose reason for being is
Peace on Earth.
The US needs these devices in Korea
in the demilitarized zone of the 38th Parallel.
Since 1954 these devices have been laid
to protect a parcel of earth called
No Man's Land.
The United States cannot keep
nor is the UN able to keep
peace on either side of the 38.
I repeat, since 1954.
I was in the 9th grade.
Most nations have some form of minesweepers.
We must feel the need to sweep up
the balls of floating death upon the waves.
Could it be we sweep them up when we are through
because the ships they sink are worth more to us
than the sum of individual men who sail them?
Who has the government contracts to construct
these explosive snap shut traps of water and earth
which indiscriminately dig the grave
for whom they indiscriminately blow apart
causing undue pain and harm or slow gangrenous death?
Are we humans not worth more than many wolves and foxes:
or are we all equal animals on the earth?
Could it possibly be
Animal Rights simply has the better lobby
with the least to gain monetarily?
NOVEMBER 2001: Landmines Re-visited.
If our 19 year old marines walk through the fields
of foreign lands fighting for our United We Stand America
losing their legs and lives to landmines Made In The USA
and given or sold to bin Laden
years ago to fight in their Russian Conflict,
will our young men and women die from friendly fire?
Greece in October
I see your face,
mostly, I see your eyes;
brown, a soft creamy brown, covered by lids halfway;
perfectly formed smooth lids.
When I watch you work your mouth is hard and purposeful.
When I watch you make love your mouth is soft and kissable.
Your arms and legs are supple, long, lean, strong muscle groups
attached to your tightly formed torso.
Your chest is solid,
with hard nipples hidden in a carpet of curly hair shaded gray.
Your navel is a well in your center being
left there by your mother for me.
I look into that well and see all the isles of Greece.
I smell the earth of ten thousand years that made you.
I hear the wars that created your spine and philosophy.
I lay my ear to your navel as though to the shells of the sea
and hear the mighty roars
of men and ships
of sails and oars
of sirens on the rocky shores.
When I shut my eyes I can see centuries of Turks
chopping away at the faces of your beloved Gods;
putting to the sword your young sons;
raping your mothers and sisters;
hanging their breasts from warrior belts:
trophies for juggling during the conqueror’s dance.
I watch that dance.
I feel the tears of constellations
weeping a bitter hot poultice for my eyes.
When you surge the bones of my being,
you are Aegean waves pounding the stones into sand.
Coral reefs become beds for the births of many children
allowing Phoenix to dry the tears of Greece.
Iris will raise a rainbow over the dark depths of memory.
From her womb filled with weeping and ashes will arise the promise.
You, my love, my one,
become one of the seeds scattered abroad
with many thousands of others just like you.
Greece, the headwaters of all Western thought
bought for the earth with the blood of your sons.
On this day the Portuguese struck land
with Spain’s three ships come sailing.
1492,
there were each and every one of you,
permeating laws, literature and liturgies.
That essence lies beside me:
I become the volcanic mound of new ground,
conquered by the eternal Greek mind
because one Columbus Day I took the time
to look into your soft creamy brown eyes
covered by smooth lids halfway.
I hear Poseidon call my name.
The deep water of your home will be my grave.
Ghost Dance
The Plains in DC:
He got on the bus.
Tall, angular, hawk faced,
dark black brown hooded Eagle’s eyes
looked far past me by twenty-five hundred miles.
Arrow straight spine and hair.
Square shoulders carried this living monument
with a slow and steady walk toward the back.
Passing my seat;
I smelled 6000 years
of dusty Southwest air
kicked up by thousands of buffalo.
I saw him ride astride his painted desert pony
and swiftly, cleanly, take his winter’s supply.
I heard him yell the victory that his tipi would
see the spring with a full stomach.
I saw the winter, cold and blowing, circle his lodge.
I felt the chill of change and not knowing.
Today he only rode the DC City Street Bus.
His tipi a refrigerator crate without watch or date.
The bus stopped.
He dismounted.
"Where is he going?" I asked my friend.
"To the food line on the mall,
we feed 600 or more here every night
there are about 6 sites overall"
In the wind I heard the distant chief,
"You feed us food that is not afraid to die.
You feed us in the shadow of your Native Tipi
and call us free.
You still subdue and conquer,
give us liquor,
make us need you in the winter.
You allow us to erect in your honor to us
The National Native American Museum.
The work of our hands for thousands of years
that pleased our eyes,
honored our fathers and their wives,
kept us alive through long hard winters,
you will call Crafts.
Our true stories of the past that embedded strength
to face the future you will allow us to house
calling them Legends and Indian Lore.
You will ask for more;
never knowing the meaning.
You will play like you are us:
wear our clothes and jewelry.
You will parade your plastic arrows
tipped with soap stone and chicken feathers.
You will beat our drums without rhythm
You will easily tire.
You will whoop and holler without reason or fire.
You will unknowingly dance the dance of drought.
You will stand in the shadow or our museum
and commemorate our past
You will tax your nation for free entry,
and asked for a donation from those who come.
You will shepherd them to rooms of viewing
showing splendid workmanship and heart;
while outside on your lawn,
in the shadow of your Great White Tipi,
we will eat the stew and bread furnished by your people.
We will yawn, spin yarns,
and ride your busses for a token.
We hear the spoken voice of our elders’ story:
Once upon a time, a long long time ago,
we fed and helped the white man
make it through the winter’s snow.
Now, let us go and ask for seconds
and dance Ghost Dance in our minds.
September 11th, 2001
The Twin World Trade Towers, The Pentagon,
and a field in Pennsylvania met with
Four Airplanes
turned into smart bombs
by less than 20 men
who could not be threatened
because they were not afraid to die.
They all died in battle:
passengers, crew, and the executioner/terrorists.
All those aboard became perishable cargo.
The buildings became bulls eye targets.
The field in Pennsylvania became a cavernous crematorium,
and finally a common smoking grave.
In the hearts of the living, the remaining,
we all pray that they rest in peace.
But their blood will seep up from the scared scorched earth
and call out the names of the dead
as long as there are ears to hear.
THANKSGIVING, 2001
Eve of the Bird Day.
Part I
The real day the Indians saved our butts.
We did not starve in that long hard winter.
Later we starved them,
gave them measle & small pox infected blankets
to warm them through a long cold winter void of buffalo,
which we had systematically killed to cut off their food supply.
Then easily we killed or crippled the spine of the remainder;
the stalwart, the strong now withered to the bone.
They were such innocent peoples,
believing in their Grand Father Spirit of all good will.
They believed us, because of their innocence.
They told us their secrets of how to survive in the 'new land'.
We screwed them in the name of God and Government.
We were truly terrorist in that time,
possessing weapons they did not understand.
Their naive belief system, pure and giving,
gave us the benefit of the doubt.
And we screwed them all the more,
calling them stupid nomadic savages.
We made promises of forgiveness and fringed repentance;
tongue in cheek remorse coated in false restitution.
They took a chance once more and willed themselves to believed us,
against the bitter judgement of old men who dreamed prophetic dreams.
Part II
Then we did the grand finale:
we promised them peace in the name of The Great White Father.
The Red Indian knew that their great father was The Great Red Father.
The Red Indian believed that we loved our Great White Father
as much as they loved their Great Red Father.
That belief was their undoing.
We loved ourselves more than Him who we worshiped.
The Red Indian loved their Father and His creation more than themselves.
This is the meaning of death:
To love yourself more than your creator.
Part III
The Red Indians chose their death in battle
knowing they would die, no matter what.
They died not for themselves
but for the spirit gift of their Great Red Father
and their children yet unborn by seven generations.
Karma knows no nation, nationality, or native born son.
Even if it takes 4 centuries to come full circle.
Each of us invisions ourselves coming from a genetically compatible father.
We perceive that we match Him in all aspects.
The peoples of hierarchy and superior ego
believed that the black man
the red man
the brown man
the yellow man
all came from their Great White Father.
This elite ego separation claiming to be an all inclusiveness belief system
has caused the greater part of malice, greed, gain
war, death and hate over the centuries of recorded history.
Part IV
We worship what we give birth to.
If The Light birthed us, then that which we birth must look like Him.
When did white become superior to red, black. yellow, brown?
There is no Great & Grand Father of many colors.
There is only The Light,
viewed in many colors of understanding.
A true light prism speaking familiar names:
names of custom and shared meaning;
homage to honor, position and perceived presence.
These many names are surrounded in the wondermeant
of stories, myths and legends.
He does not know these names,
these divisions of himself.
He says:
I AM THAT I AM
I AM THE GREAT ALWAYS AND FOREVER
I AM THE MOMENT
The Light only knows his children;
wherever, whoever, and whatever they are in the universe.
He knows the voice of His Children calling: Not His name.
And so we come to Him,
calling Him:
Allah,
Jehovah,
Elohiem,
Christ,
Jesus,
God,
Holy Spirit,
Buddha,
Father,
Creator,
Great Red Father
over 2500 names we humans have given Him
in every language of all times.
We of this planet must stop the extermination
of those who do not call The Light by the names of our separate choses.
The miracle is The Light desires to hear us at all;
desires to understands what we say;
wants to know what we want to say;
what we wish we had said;
what we desperately wish we had not said.
Unconditionally, we are loved by The Light,
No Matter What.
We divide The Light and love only what we understand in our minds.
This trait separates us from the fullness of The Light,
from ourself,
from our search,
from our brothers.
The Light remains changeless.
The Light loves the many and varied reflections of us,
as a still lake reflects the light of the full moon.
as the moon reflects the light of the sun.
which we do not see at the time,
yet believe it to be shining.
Red and Yellow, Black, Brown, and White;
We all come.
We come slowly, more often reluctantly.
The paths are many.
The final destination but The One.
The Red Indians also knew along with re-located Afrikans,
"It is a sin to kill a mockingbird":
The reason being, this noisy bird speaks many languages with understanding.
The children of Light must yet learn
the language of the mockingbird.
Epilogue
The United Nations Peace Keeping Force
VS
The border, nation, religion, race, creed wars.
It is impossible to threaten a man who is willing to die.
The power that drops the bombs
cannot pass out the food and medicine.
Looking back on our own continent's history:
from the 15th century to the present:
the pseudo-superior might begin to understand
the primal urge to bite the hand that feeds you.
Gratitude is the shortest lived of all human attributes.
Hate is the longest lived.
And that brings me full circle to the Dalai Lama:
Mankind has a right to desire happiness.
We are all born into suffering.
We all die out of suffering.
©1998-2003 Gaylee Humbert