yellow ribbon (in memoriam)

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.