Red, White and Blue

Honor the brave dead
from Afghanistan and Iraq,

heroes against
German and Japanese imperialism,
and the sacrificed souls

in “the war to end all wars.”

But also thank Custer’s soldiers  
for not completing the genocide. 

I went to bed and dreamt that Sitting Bull
saw Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a vision quest

and then dropped an A-Bomb
on Washington, D.C.

to stop invading Custer from killing
his women and children like so many insects.

Upon awakening, I discovered
that America attacked Iraq
for weapons of mass destruction

after murderous pecuniary munitions manufacturers
crumbled twin towers
with their boomerang missiles
because recipients of evil often do evil in return.

Russian troops rhythmically
marched in the Ukraine,
a cruel video
beheaded a journalist,

ruinous bombs reined down
on rubbled villages of the weak,
and a bullet to a private’s leg became gangrene
as sepsis spread to amputation and death.  

An obscure philosophy book said
that Custer should have refused
to attack renegades

because the Black Hills were the Lakota’s by treaty

and that God had ordered
Custer’s men to lay down their weapons
or be shot for insubordination.

By river rapids, a sweating grimacing squaw
watched the blue cavalry approach as
she gave birth to a red son,

who drew his first breath,
wailed loudly and coveted white milk.

-- Gil Hoy