(Violence is as American as cherry pie.)

H. Rap Brown

The bullet riddled bodies of Orlando, Sandy Hook

and other atrocities whose names we forget,

the iceberg tip of our bent to destroy.

So let us name just some of our eradications:

            Hundreds of Indian villages. Centuries of slaves worked to death.

            Our military and CIA’s crushing of people’s self-determination,

            Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Dominican Republic

and Indonesia in 1965, Chile in 1973, Nicaragua and

El Salvador in the 1980s up to Honduras in 2009.

We can name them to others and get the blank stare,

the refusal to hear, to think, to consider and wonder

if our silent indifference means consent.

Still we name them, yearning for a day when

America can bless God.

June 17, 2016