POEM 94**
The Sky Melted Its Blue
(This poem is dedicated to the lives lost in Paris,
along with the several million lives lost in the wars
the U.S. and its allies have caused since the invasion
of Afghanistan; as well as the millions, whose lives have
become horror stories in seeking refuge from these wars)

The shy melted its blue
into angry red.
Dark piercing shades of night bled
as a desperately needed hospital blew
in Afghanistan.
Doctors, volunteers, sick and wounded patients
gave their blood to the night sky.
October 3rd, U.S. state sponsored terror
added to the tens of thousands
who have already died.
~~~
The sky melted its darkness
into angry red.
Everyday people, eating in cafes,
going to see a soccer game,
going to concert halls
or just walking down the street enjoying life.
November 13th, ISIS terror
and bodies bled into the Paris sky.
~~~
Where is the difference
in these acts of societal horrors?
How can anyone claim
a moral high ground?
~~~
Two reactionary, outmoded systems
face off against each other.
One, claiming to be enlightened,
democratic, “the greatest society to ever be”;
built on genocide and slavery
that down to today murders
black and brown youth,
incarcerates 2.5 million in dungeons,
attacks women on every front,
and savagely destroys the Earth’s very life.
The other, reactionary, feudal
with harshly enforced ignorance
and superstition,
and the brutal oppression of women.
Two poles of exploitation and oppression.
MacWorld or Jihad?
Are we supposed to choose?
While choosing either, strengthens both!
NEVER, should be our resistance cry.
~~~
This cycle of terror, horror
and wars of aggression
must be broken through and stopped.
With conscious, visible resistance against
ALL oppression, continued invasions,
drone attacks and bombings
done by the ‘West’.
As we also call out against
the reactionary terror
of the Jihadists.
This is up to us,
the everyday people, world wide.
This system of imperialism
has gotten us into this mess,
and through revolution, nothing less
we can find our way out
and build a world free from all this!!

Aztec Warrior 11.18.15
(See http://www.revcom.us)

Perhaps many of you have already gotten a similar plea from Eliot York. But I wanted to post this as a way of helping to spread the word that money is needed to keep this poetry web page going.

I am not able to do much by way of donations, except for a few "sun shines on a poem or two each month. Perhaps if a few more of us could do the same, it might be a small way that would add up and Hello Poetry could be kept afloat.. Below is Eliot's message to me and I am sending to you..

Hi Aztec,

This is Eliot, from Hello Poetry. I hate to bother you, but I need to raise funds to keep Hello Poetry running.

If you're able, Hello Poetry could really use your support now. Buying sunshine, donations through paypal, or spreading the word-- anything helps!

http://hellopoetry.com/donate/

Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

All the best,
Eliot

SEDUCTION**

(for a friend who asked if I were "Caucasian". My answer: no one determines the nationality of their skin when born. But all of us can determine who we are and who we stand with and what our lives mean. I chose long ago to stand against oppression and to stand along side those fighting their oppression. Not as a white man, but as a human being)

You beat your ‘tana’ drum
with ancient, calloused hands
making it speak relentlessly,
as if you were rain soaked wind
announcing moonless death.
As it echoes down brown, barren rivers,
its crescendo can be heard
crashing through tangled undergrowth
until it reaches the
timeless and continuous sea.
~~~
The ocean has swallowed
millennia of hardships,
where,  on this very spot,
blood flowed freely, soaking
these sands with slavery’s misery.
It was here
the Great Rock at Toubab Dialaw
was  born.
Born and grew.
                            Grew from endless
emptiness, borne as the
beating of human flesh.
It was hacked, torn from limb
and shackled, then
dispersed to distant shores.
Blood, red with resistance,
soaked the sands,
colored the tides,
and choked the air with its
beat, beat, beat,
beatings and death.
Blood ran thick with sated flies
and when you looked into their eyes,
all you saw was  bottomless ocean.
Empty
           Yet pulling,
like seduction.
~~~
You beat your ‘tana’ drum
with hardened, calloused hands,
and your rage.
You make it speak seduction,
enticing us to dance on
Toubab Dialaw’s ****** shores,
staring into the bottomless eyes of death.
It is pulling
            pulling,
                      pulling us
into its seduction.
Filling us with your anger,
with your rage;
filling us with your drumming tongue
and the unquenchable thirst for revolution;
for all these wrongs to be undone.

written as redzone 3.21.07
posted by Aztec Warrior

Sorcha, Remembered**

why does sunlight
shimmering through the trees,
leaving shadowy patterns
on the ground below
remind me of you?
or how watching
two squirrels
chasing each other
around the Sycamore
remind me how you loved
to listen to Lennon’s ‘Imagine”?
~~~
Yesterday
I came across pictures
of your ‘safe place’.
The ones you emailed me
to let me know you were okay.
a small waterfall
glimpsed between
lush green over growth
sparkled in the sunlight
and I could imagine
you sitting there
humming to the music it made.
~~~
You once told me
you thought we (humanity)
could make a difference,
could fix the damage done
to the earth;
fix the damage people have done
to each other.
and this was said in spite
of all the pain, suffering
and damage done to you; which
eventually led to your death.
~~~
I must apologize
to all I know
for not thinking of you more often.
for it wasn’t until
I recovered your photos
it had been awhile.
it reminded me
that after I heard of your death,
besides playing ‘Imagine’
over and over again,
I couldn’t stop playing
Annie Lennox’s re-mix
of ‘I Can’t Get Close To You’.
~~~
You lived down under,
Queensland native
with husband and kids.
so while I never met you,
I felt a human to human
kinship - one we all should share.

Aztec Warrior 11.3.15