yellow ribbon (in memoriam)

see note for reviewers.

pause for a moment of silence

before continuing your day

to bless your lucky stars

that you were born within these

borders

which increase every day their campaign

to keep others out or to send those back

whom have established families &

jobs---

some for nearly two decades.

 

in the same breath we so easily

forget

that this country was built on the labor produced by a

steady flow of

immigrants who came here willingly &

by slaves who were dragged here

against their will

to help the white men who successfully fled

taxation in one empire

to come here, kill off the native population as

best as they could

& establish a new empire

(even more powerful than the one that they

left)

in order to fill their pockets,

passing their indestructible wealth down the

line of their descendents for centuries to come.

 

after plowing down all in their paths in order to

make it to the other coast of this new found

cash cow---

leaving nothing but blankets bearing small pox,

dead buffalo & dead native americans all along the

way,

the empire found need to expand beyond our borders

& to confiscate all the resources that they could---

over land & all bodies of water

they trudged on,

speaking loudly

& carrying a big big stick

slamming it down upon the heads of all who

resisted---as well as those that didn’t.

 

so while we still exist in this dwindling american

age---with china just over the horizon

ready to take up the reins,

it seems appropriate to close our disgusting

first world, celebrity worshipping, fashion

fanatical, complacent, increasingly illiterate,

& sedentary

mouths,

and to remember the stolen lives of the

civilians

(whose number is always kept from

us---always estimated & scant at best)---

those that once resided in

the countries with whom we have most recently

been slamming the empire’s billy club down upon,

tirelessly & without any notion that an end of our

torturous beating frenzy

is in the near future.

 

tie a yellow ribbon

round that tree

for the

between

125,421 &

240,000

Iraqi civilians who have been killed so far,

as a result of the united states invasion “beginning” in

2003.

 

tie another for those

dropping like flies in our new

vietnam---

anywhere between 9,000 &

27,000 are supposed to have been

killed so far, in the current

Afghanistan debacle. 

 

in this century, if you are a

budding

young

capitalist---

best to invest in yellow ribbon,

it is most certainly a safe bet. 

 

Author's Note

“I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that.”

Donald Rumsfeld


“Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.”


*Benazir Bhutto
June 21st, 1953-December 27th, 2007

*The first woman ever elected to a Muslim state