Bloodletting

The greatest Americans have not been born yet They are waiting patiently for the past to die Please give blood Those crumbled tablets were to share a story with a burning bush Where is that voice from nowhere to remind us that the holy ground we walk on, purified by native blood, has rooted trees who's fallen leaves now color coat a savored list of demands Who among us can give translation of autumn hues to morning news? The anchorman thrown overboard has simply rooted us in histories repeating cycle A nation in its saddened years that won't acknowledge karma Where is the voice from nowhere, the ones your prophets spoke of? There are voices from fear disconnected from their diaphragms, dangling from coffee covered teeth that spill into our laps and scorch our privates There are voices from the sides of necks, some already noosed, dangling participles pronouns running for sentence Serving life in corner offices and ghetto corners, their voices are the same Dead to themselves, numb to the possibility of truth existing beyond that which they can palm in their hands, period There are voices of elders, which seem to do no more than damn us to our childish ways For in many households, wisdom no longer comes with age So where is that voice from nowhere, that burning bush, that passing dove? I hear the voices of generals calling for ammunition, presidents calling for arms, women calling for help Where is that voice from nowhere, that god of Abraham? Can he be heard over the gunfire, the whiz of passing missiles, the crash of buildings, the cries of children, the crack of bones, the shriek of sirens? Or is that his mighty voice Your angry god craving the sacrifice of early generations sons degenerate Your holy books written in red ink on burning sands Your prayers between rounds do no more than fasten the fate of your children to the hammered truth of your trigger A truth that mushrooms its darkened cloud over the rest of us So that we too bear witness to the short lived fate of a civilization that worships a male god Your weapons are phallic, all of them That dummy that sits on your lap is no longer a worthwhile spectacle His shrunken pale face leaves little room for imagination We have spotted your moving lips and have pinned the voice to its proper source It is a source of madness It is a source of hunger, of power A source of weakness A source of evil We have exited your coliseum and are encircling your box-office, demanding our families back, our cultures back, our rituals back, our gods back, so that we may return them to their proper source The source of life, the source of creation, our mothers womb, the great goddess We will cut through the barbwire hangers and chastity belts We will climb in and incubate our spirits to the winter We will wait through the degenerate course of your repeated history We will wait for the past to die