Some poems from RPB member Dee Allen

In response to Tuscon's banning of ethnic studies textbooks by Amerikkkan Indian & La Raza authors from their schools, I drag out this one from my archives. For anyone who had heard one too many one-sided stories in History class as children----Because that's the kind of U.$. History the state of Arizona wants to force on grade school students----Talk about turning back the clock---- 

 

 

CHOKE
______

 

Murderers are "patriots"
"Conquering heroes"
Indigenous tribes----
Almost zero

 

Crimson
Drenches the once-tribal ground
To death go the natives
Civilization's abound

 

While the other martyrs flee
Or endure enslavement's pain
Living under the cracking whip
Bound down in chains

 

Or burnt at the stake, a "witch"
In the name of a vile creed
Hatred, from the start
Planted this Empire's seed

 

Retreaded, shredded past
Built on broken trust
On bullets & blades, on theft & rape
& pocket-filling lust

 

Time after time [ many years ]
After lynchings & battlefires
[ In the classroom ] Children sit in attention &
[ Mentally ] Choke on the teachings of liars

 

Forced to read & heed the fraud &
Pledge the crossburner's flag
True culture, true identity lost
Downward drag

 

"Great Land Of The Free"
So the schoolbook lie insists
Maybe someday truth will be uncovered
Or the children shall resist.



SYMBOLS 2
___________

The kaffiyeh:
Traditional Arab cloth
Worn to protect
Flesh of neck
From the sun's
Oppressive, hot desert glare
Or to support
Their passion for freedom against
Zionist Jewish occupation.


Now, worn about the shoulders
Of proud
Caucasians
Not out of solidarity
With colonised Palestine,
But to support
A violent, anti-Semitic agenda.


What they did not create,
Haters will steal.


The sun cross:
Cros Cheilteach,
Universal symbol of Christ,
Wandering Aramaic
Carpenter-turned-prophet,
With hair like lamb's wool,
Feet like burnt brass,
Worshipped by Celts
And millions of others.


Now, the property of thieves.
Taken straight from
Indigenous Gaelic culture, signifying
Wanted genocide
And White pride
Worldwide.


What they did not create,
Haters will steal.


The triskelion:
Three legs
Symmetrical prongs
Running in
An everlasting circle.
Round and round and round
Forward motion.
The cycle never breaks,
Like phases of the moon:
New, half, full.
Like on all planes,
Life:
Among spirits,
On our Earth,
In the cosmos.
Like time's passage:
Past, present, future.
Italians, Greeks and Celts
Used these three prongs
This moving cyphre
With myriad meanings
Before the Christian Church and their trimmings
Became official.


Now, emblazoned on
Red flags, wrenched into form
Three sevens
Victory over evil
Victory to the
So-called "Aryan race".


What they did not create,
Haters will steal.


The swastika:
Well-travelled
Spiritual emblem.
Found in more cultures,
More faiths, rivalling
The radiant shine of the sun.
Suavastika:
Human well-being to the Hindus & Jains,
Which they all strive for.
Manji:
Ten thousand to infinity,
Emblem for a countdown
That never stops.
Embedded at the crest
Of Japanese Buddhist
Temple gates.
Inner peace measurement unit
Consecrates one of Japan's
Railway stations
Ensuring a pleasant journey
To all passengers crossing
The front portal.
The daystar:
To Chinese Buddhists & its
Amerikkkan Indian worshippers,
Where the life-cycle truly begins.


Such a left-handed
Talisman was first carved
By followers of the
Gautama Buddha
Deep into his bloated chest
Ensuring his safe journey
Into the hereafter
Into aether, where nebulous
God-figures should reside-----
Or so the ancient legend went.
Human well-being
Ten thousand times into infinty-----


Turn the left-handed, clockwise
Swastika backwards
As early 20th Century
German Fascists did,
Bitter over their nation's defeat
In the first of both
World Wars, and its sacredness
Turns sinister.


Now, an easily reconised symbol
Sure to instill
The bone chill.
Alarms ring in the heads of many.
A symbol for
A movement
Of marching jackboots & stormtrooper helmets
Black shirts
Brown shirts
Smoke-grey uniforms
Blood-red armbands
White-hot xenophobia
Rifles & Lugers did all their talking
Single file line
Into this modern time
Gradually morph
Into marching steel toes
With red or white laces
Sporting aluminium bats
With red or white braces
Shaved and dangerous,
Hate-fueled wrath,
Scapegoat-chasing, aspiring
Fourth Reich
Minority.
A movement
Of monsters
Following monsters
Following monsters
Follwing monsters
Constantly down the abyss
Yawning and gaping
Bottomless and claiming
More ignorant takers
And taking down many
Unlike prey with them
Unprovoked-----


What they did not create,
Haters will steal.


The kaffiyeh.
The sun cross.
The triskelion.
The swastika.


From indigenous cultures,
Sanctified symbols
Claimed and cherished
As their own,
The property of thieves.


Thieves already know
That society hates them
For hating them.
Their expropriated symbols
Are discouraged, out in the open.
There are laws and customs against those symbols.
So thieves practise
The art of camouflage:


Enter a community.
Any community.
Melt into the background
Into the crowd
Unnoticed.
Live as neighbours do.
Act as neighbours do.
And upon finding like-minded others,
Communicate with each other in
Pictorial,
Numerical,
Encrypted
Ways.


They can blend into the crowd if they want,
Play hide and seek with the public if they want,
Speak in codes if they want,
Lurk in dark, secret spaces if they want,
But the sight of symbols
Around their necks,
On their chests,
On their skin,
On their flags
Will eventually bring
Fascists out into the light.