Dragging their brains along

If you think that the Kleptocrat and his toadies have no imperial ambitions, I hope you are not operating heavy machinery. White Americans formed this country on the foundation of Manifest Destiny; that still shapes the policies of the best of our governments. The white Christian nationalists in the Republican party are using Mr. I’m-not-a-pedophile to solidify their notions of a theocratic state that uses imperial-level power to bend the world to their will. The pedophile is mostly in it for the money grab and the thrill of exercising power, but it amounts to the same thing.

For today’s entry for National Poetry Month, I’m giving you Jesús Castillo’s “Untitled”, for a few thoughts about empire. Castillo was born in San Luís Potosí, Mexico, emigrated to California at age 11 and now lives in Oaxaca, Mexico. Along the way at some point, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa.

Castillo said, about this poem, that the job of the poet today is to have fun and to observe, and to have fun with what s/he observes. So, here we go.

         Dear Empire, I am confused each time I wake inside you.
                        You invent addictions. 
          Are you a high-end graveyard or a child?
                        I see your children dragging their brains along.
                        Why not a god who loves water and dancing
                   instead of mirrors that recite your pretty features only?

          You wear a different face to each atrocity.
          You are un-unified and tangled.
                        Are you just gluttony?
                        Are you civilization’s slow grenade?

             I am confused each time I’m swallowed by your doors.

 

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