Sunday, December 11, 2016

Civilized





you were told to wear clothes
and given rags to hide your beautiful nakedness
the beings of the forest no longer knew you
scent of water soil and green buried in the sweat of the coerced
an acrid odor
fetid like swamp and all the most delicious prey know
to flee deeper into the shadows that fall across your eyes

buried dreams speak as loud as innocence lost
                as loud as murder

you were given food and you were grateful
belly swollen
stick limbs
you saw your brothers waste and die
turn grey
no dark mahogany coffee cream-soda chocolate burnished skin
just pitted with death and foam at their mouths
no voices left to cry for
                just one sip
                                just one bite
your mother’s shrunken breasts, her salt tears
she had no chance to save them
                are you the lucky one?

the stories in your eyes are nightmares
piercing the lies we tell ourselves in worlds of plenty
                it can’t happen here
the sadness fear and anger eyes of betrayal
you work to pay for all that was free in grandmother’s time
your father held you to the sky in one brief moment of joy
                another nick in the wall of eternity
before the rains dried up and the grasses turned to brown
receded down to dust that rises
coats your skin and chokes your throat
the cycle of the bees broken
no more milk no honey
your mother’s breasts are barren
                cold

and help arrives to steal your mind
the price of food and land that used to be yours

you were churched and schooled enough
to pray for the success of what destroyed you
you spoke to me with tortured eyes
you demanded more and, not given
turned in upon yourself
the anomie of unanswered Want
the empty depth that hardens
                ages
                                breaks you
the atoms of your death can’t even feed the hungry earth
                no water

we’ve changed the planet to fit a mold
cast by a being no one has seen or heard
except in dreams or visions
and still you stare with ancient eyes
your urgent aching songs unheard

we lost your ripe juicy lips and cheeks
your golden dark
                your sturdy limbs
the center of your spinning galaxies

yet songs like molten honey burn and seduce
sun eye unblinded by the night
                and like the sun
                                you rise