By Elmaz Abinader
Let me lie here for a moment
Let me put my head down on the scorched earth
I need a breather, one last gasp
before I am gone. As you know
my days are numbered. I have been under attack
by those who need to hold me dear.
Let me slump onto the ground
a heap of ashes.
I cannot walk
My feet have worn to stumps
from marching into villages
and cities where fires burn and
families swallow the ashes
becoming debris of their own countries
These feet were shredded and calloused
holding me back from reaching
the suffering of Katrina and Rita
from unlocking the cages of
from standing with the Palestinians
as their homes are crushed into pellets
These feet have not walked in peace
to the justice department to cry no more
to the white house to cry no more
to the capitol to cry no more.
We were just too busy trying on shoes
The arms too. Are useless.
They have lost their movement. I cannot even
raise them. They have been occupied
holding weapons at mothers standing
in the doorways of their homes, babies
crying behind them. Busy with pushing the faces
of prisoners into the stone wiring them
with electricity lighting them like Christmas.
These arms are too exhausted to embrace
our immigrants, to plant food without poisons
to disarm the citizens of their personal
handguns, rifles, magnums, ak47’s, Uzis
Or hold the signs that say, no more
They were too busy playing racquetball
and putting gas into my
See these fingers, withered and shrunken,
All mobility is gone from planting
listening devices in your home, from writing
the orders that sacrifice the free speech,
the right to assemble, trial by jury,
religious tolerance. It takes a lot
of energy to choke the life out of the
Bill of Rights.
These fingers have penned all the stories
that appear in the media so you
could know how to think, and rigging
voting machines, nearly destroyed them
So they could not strum the protest
songs, write the petitions against the regime,
that beg “no more.”
We were busy at the computer, chatting
and playing war games.
Yes, my head is gone too, mind
and all. The cells disintegrated
after overtime on recreating
language to make “family values”
translate to bigotry and narrow-mindedness
to create phrases like “enemy combatant”
“axis of evil”, “islamic fascism, so this would
become your language too.
lobe are particularly exhausted from inventing
enemies and twisting fact. We stopped
thinking about the strategies for a humane
educated and healthy public. Our memory
for the words of Martin, Ghandi, Fanon,
Sojourner, Nelson, Leonard and Mumia
Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Gibran, Hafez
John Lennon has faded. We can’t even remember
why we should say “no more.”
I am almost gone.
Do you hear the last beat
of my heart? The center of my existence
The core of my beliefs. The pulse is graying
into the earth. When I was born, the rhythm
was so healthy and vibrant. In it, bills
were created that pushed back racism,
that inspired arts and education
that worried about the health of children.
turned it to stone. The rage against
the Arabs Muslims Sikhs American Indians Boricuas
Chicanos gays lesbians and transgender the hate
for rappers, black panthers and artists whistle blowers
and protesters diluted the blood from the arteries
deregulated my pumping-letting me know
there is “no more.”
I stand before you a ghost
this country, this democracy
so hard to build, so easy to destroy.
I have been given away, piece by piece
That’s just the way it is– there is “no more.”