Still
or “A Closed Book of Poetry”
© by John Monteleone 2000, 2010, and 2013

(ode to the 100 million American Indians slaughtered to steal this country by and for the 1%)

as i sit silently near the ol’ whaling village
in the woods, by the ancient sea
in the distance i hear the Indian’s drum
like a heartbeat ticking through time in me
feels like windless leaves
buried bodies and old memories
life lived once as it lives in me
gone like a lost spring breeze
it’s so still… now…
like a closed book of poetry

i can hear the arrows and shots ring out
bodies falling hard into their graves
your bloodshed has not left this ground
your fatherless children still cry out
in ghettos and prisons and broken homes
in empty bottles of thunderbird
in fraudulent hearts and all the blame
on the once fertile Indian plains
and like the tears hidden in me
there’s nothing you can see
it’s so still… now…
like a closed book of poetry

this park was named after you
to lessen the guilt of our guns
to silence the bloodied screams
echoing in the moonlit sky
buried deep under this soil
lives the result of our dreams
hidden in our sleepless memories
and bloody history
and all it could possibly mean
now forgotten and unseen
it’s so still… now…
like a closed book of poetry
hidden so no one can see

what you did to me
what you to my family
what you did to history