Tag Archives: Native

Thanksgiving Lie

28 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Land Theft, Native, Native America, Native American, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Thanksgiving Lie

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Thanksgiving Lie -- Native1

There was partnership with
native tribes to be sure, after
we had squatted on their land.

There were allies, in-fighting,
out-fighting, and all the normal
chaos that comes with coveting.

Competition with Spain and others
so fierce, the sickness of conquest;
Viking and Roman member measuring.

We came, we saw, we coveted,
we indeed stole—first erecting
a Fort in Paspahegh land without…

communication nor permission.
White, Christian and armed seemed
enough to the sick and damaged

English, attacked and vulnerable
at all sides of its island at home.
“Attack first, hit hard and win”

Now plagued America, the coast
a notch on the belt of a warring
people, who knew no other way.

June of 1676 was a time of party
for the English settlers, who in
writing set down Thanksgiving—

A prayer of thanks to God almighty
for victory over Native Americans
in war for their land: “It certainly

bespeaks our positive Thankfulness,
when our Enemies are in any measure
disappointed or destroyed…”

…went the document, “Thanks for
killing the native people, Lord, so
we can inhabit their lands in peace.”

Have a nice turkey, if you think the
feast a proper one.  Not me, I’ll spend
the day as much as possible making

amends for stealing land.

Polytheistic

14 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Virgen1

I was brought up to think
polytheism and paganism the
devil, and something to avoid
like the plague.

I here announce my polytheism,
finding both the bible and
Earth concept helpful to
arrive at good spirituality
and decision making.

The two work together well,
ask Juan Diego and the Virgin
of Guadalupe.

Mixing is okay, take what you
like and leave the rest;

the highest power in my life,
when put into words is the
Native American Great Spirit.

I pray without books, conjuring
the Earth and sky above it,
attempt to find harmony
between it all, and ask guidance
that my action find and enhance
the harmony.

The word of God through his
son Jesus Christ is food; I
eat it daily next to my breakfast
and lunch.

I do not eat dinner anymore
because two drug overdoses
injured my brain and diaphragm
so I cannot digest food and sleep
at the same time.

I took drugs and drank flammable
alcohol before I considered
the Great Spirit and happy,
balanced, content

Polytheism.

Earth for Christ?

14 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Catholic Church, Conquest, Imperialism, Mexico, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Spain

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Guanajuato Flores

Christ in books, the gospel
doth speake, the message of
peace and love, of what
could we peasants on Earth
argue?

Must we abandon the Earth,
customs of thousands of
years, to follow Spain into
perfect quest for perfect
biblical perfection?

What sort of inquisition is
this?  Must we abandon our
gods for yours?  Couldn’t
we each of us live and let
live?

Spain came to Mexico and threw
it down, but the mix converted
some Spanish to the spirit
you see in ballet folklórico
and Mariachi music.

The hills teem with peasant life
that gives the smile of purity
to the modern Spanish streets
of San Miguel.

The mix works, and Mexico is
of such…

In the North, the English drove
a hard, secular line between
them and religion, then brought
that set of lines to Europe’s
“New World,” usurping Christ
when convenient, dividing,
removing and killing brown
people with different customs
called diabolical and heathen
to garner justification.

Sins committed four hundred
years ago are still sins, and if
un-amended it’s never too
late to apologize and restore
love and sanity, give land
back where stolen.

Borderless

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Borderless1

The spirit of God, wisdom
and truth cascading down, wordless
and real.  Life, Creation, in a baby’s
eyes upon waking—

What are borders?

“Good fences make good neighbors,”
said Robert Frost, and Jesus?

Only God is good.  I’m a polytheist,
a student of the Bible but, more
recently, taken with foot on soil,
appealing to nature,

I’m into the Native American
Great Spirit.

No borders, no words, we appeal
in dance, song, movement,
see answers in light, comfort,
warmth, and our daily bread.

The infant cares not about
borders, nor I.  A bit of boundary
between them and I is good,
as long as we’re willing to tear
it down in need.

Kindness is universal, morality
within us all to know.

That’s why when it comes time
to make amends for harms in
our past by us or our ancestors,
I say don’t hesitate but Go…

Piracy Under the Cross

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Colonialism, Imperialism, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Racism, USA

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Crusade1

It’s never too late to make amends.
To make a change, to recognize
the humanity of native peoples…

The British and Spanish, among others,
came to a land across the sea,
sized it up, coveted and stole.

Piracy under the Cross.

“Fine people on both sides”
tout the greatest democracy
on earth while Native Americans
remain locked up on land
we cast them to so we could
rape and reap the benefit
of their inheritance.

How many white people in
North America live on and
benefit from stolen land?
Armed theft in 1607 is an
at-large crime with victims
today.

Genocide and removal are
the ways of the “greatest
democracy in the world.”

Add to that slavery, promising
to pay the slaves after a war,
not paying the slaves after
the war as promised.

Visit Skid Row in Southern
California’s Lost Angeles,
a place I call Otsungna, the
native name… the place of
the roses until the Spanish
came with bibles and guns
to conquer, convert and kill.
There you see in black and
white, mostly black—the neglect
and invalidity of the USA,
a government founded in racism,
religionism, slavery, violence
and lies.  African Americans
brought in cages and chains,
released from bondage in 1865
without land, entitlement,
ownership, but “you are free
so enjoy your nearest slum…”

These sins and crimes still
fester; they are not less sins
and crimes because they were
long ago.

Health depends on honesty
and clean living;

For that reason, I have removed
myself from the supposed
“United States of America,”
a British experiment gone wrong.

The Greatest Democracy in the World

10 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in America, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, USA

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USA Rotting3

They pitched me a lie in school
and on screen that we were
a great country based on our
president, government and
election-based “democracy.”

That was before I started
actually studying facts.  Native
Americans were not a part
of the 1776 British experiment,
and usurping colonists usurped.

There is a great country the
farcical, violent, usurping USA
doth claim, beautiful lands,
all free to roam until
the Europeans came to conquer.

People-rule is always silly,
I mean who of us rules during
a hurricane, forest fire or
earthquake?  No government
is valid if based on just humans!

Geocracy would serve better,
God, Earth and People-rule—
call it a merging of cultures
and ideas.  The U.S. Constitution
is a dry, secular mess for the rich.

The Iroquois Confederacy finally
found paper and ink after years
of oral records, and the great
difference between it and the
British rebel one is Great Spirit—

or, if you will, Higher Power
recognition.  Their meetings
asked for blessings from
Nature and Earth—from the Great
Creator called Great Spirit.

Humility is good, a slow-moving
fact above Mexico and below
Canada.  Vikings and English
conquerors, inspired by Roman
lust for foreign land, plague us.

That hotbed of invasion for thousands
of years in Europe created quite
a scary arsenal of horrible, loud,
destructive weapons and forces
to kill other human beings.

As Lao Tzu pointed out, we
cannot change the world, but
in telling the truth about it,
we make the good Dickensian,
Mrs. Chickian effort.

Imagine if Wyatt Earp let the
gangs run towns, or if a sober
writer let the descendants
of violent land theft call the USA
the greatest democracy in the world.

It is not, nor should it be.
There is a Higher Power in charge,
and that is still knowledge for
the wide path to grab while
the narrow hopes for heaven.

Talgarth Graves

10 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Britain, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Talgarth, Wales

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Talgarth17

I went home over the Summer
to Talgarth, Wales in the mountains
of Breconshire.

There I walked land no one stole.
There I felt a connection to the land
and people, the name Watkins,
along with Davis, Thomas, Hughes
and Evans dotting graves at the
churchyard of St. Gwendoline’s…

Some graves need work, and I shall
return to work them, remember
our fathers and mothers so forgotten
when a slew of Talgarth’s sons and
daughters fled to an old world
we called new because white people
hadn’t before Columbus, Raleigh
and Smith seen it.

We vainly usurped the land before
Spain or other usurpers could,
committed armed theft over the
course of hundreds of years,

now call the British colonists’
experiment in government of
the 18th century the “greatest
democracy in the world.”

Not so for Native Americans,
or the slaves we brought to work
stolen land, promised to pay
them after the Civil War,
only to renege and continue
to preach about the Greatest
Democracy in the World.

Great on the surface for people
escaping responsibilities and
lives in Europe, such as my
ancestors, who obviously left
Dad and Grandpa’s graves to
the wind in Talgarth, Wales, so
we could go across an ocean
and steal.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation
of 1676 was a prayer of
thanks to God for killing
off Native Americans so efficiently
with disease and in-fighting.

The natives had a message of
gratitude for the land, wisdom
and peace—

Something our bible and gun-
toting ancestors cared nothing
for, unfortunately.

Global Warming arrived in 1492,
solidified in 1607 with John
Smith and other English people
calling native Wingandacoa
Virginia, its first successful
robbery being “Jamestown”
named after a Scottish king
who unified Britain and tore
apart Native America without
a care, because those naked,
brown, content people were
not “Christian.”

Where did Jesus say it’s good
to leave your fathers’ graves,
sail across an ocean and steal
other human beings’ land?

Jesus said truth, Gospel, glory
to all that’s High for his teaching,
but his message would be
better served if we treated foreign
people with love, respect—
totally free of judgment.

The United States is a farce
built on stolen land, violence
and lies.

The land, though, thrives, and
I dream to return to it after
fixing the graves of Talgarth.

God forgive us our sins, help
us to amend mistakes and errors
to truly pave the way not
just for a biblical second coming,

but for a more full, complete
spirituality enhanced by the experience
of Native people, whose Great Spirit
is love and peace,

Glorious creation, the Waterfall
their bible,

Something they taught on deaf ears
until a day I hope soon, when
white people from Europe open
them up to hear.

Mi Familia Mexicana

10 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Bilingual, Español, Family, Mexico, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, San Miguel de Allende, Spanish

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Me and Mexico1

When you rise in the morning,
think yourself in the hills,
a Spanish rancho set in
Guanajuato, Mexico—

San Miguel de Allende
a place of magic, as time
suspends… Cobblestone
streets and the colors of
Dream’s wild dance in
February or May, it doesn’t
much matter—

This is… Mi familia Mexicana.

Jesus said “Family are those
who do the will of God,”

La voluntad de Dios, pero,
te pregunto ahora:

¿Que es el nombre de tu Dios
personal?

Lo mío cambia, y soy sin duda
un politeísta… Que tengo mi
biblia, y lo estudio mucho,

Pero, mis amigos y familia,
¿Que del mundo indígena?

No teníamos para mucho tiempo,
libros, palabras escritos ni impresas,

y había un Dios en esa época
y ahora.  Sin palabras, sin saber
ni una sencilla, solitaria cosa:

un Dios está, tal vez El Gran
Espíritu, como se llama en
El Norte, esa tierra nombrado
por Ingleses y Españoles
algo Europeo—pero ¿cual es correcto,
el nombre para tierra y dioses
de la gente de la región natural con
historia de miles de anos…

O los nombres que usaron Europeos
con armas y biblias, nombres de
una tierra robada?

Mi familia Mexicana sabe la respuesta;
no hay naciones, fronteras en
el corazón de cariño y amor.

Haciendo la voluntad del dios de
su propio comprensión… Libertad…

Amor sin condición, bailando con
mariachis en el Jardín de San Miguel,
gente de las montañas, caballos
y burros de Dios nos sirviendo humilde
y sencillo, la sonrisa de todos niños
de cualquier color o “raza…”

Es, señores, y señoras…

Mi familia Mexicana.

Wingandacoa

09 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in Native, Native America, Native American, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Wingandacoa1

There was a name for a place.
It was named how it was named
for a reason, thousands of years
of tradition, story, repetition and
heritage made that place special,
its people living, dying, circling
the earth in spirit and land—

Gratitude for the water, the food,
the abundance and song.

Then came the British white man,
who was vain and violent enough
to change the name of the place
at a glance because its inhabitants
were not Christian, bible-toting or
“advanced” enough in war (cowards)
to carry and use loud, destructive
firearms—

the kind that still kill in malls,
churches, streets and schools today.

The British white man called this
land “Virginia,” after their virgin
queen Elizabeth.

Vanity.  Violence.  Usurpation…

To first usurp the Bible and Christ
for violent land acquisition.

Then to usurp the land itself…

Wingandacoa lives and breathes;
is the place I cherish and maintain
in my heart one of abundance,
native beauty and tradition.

No Roman-influenced conquest by
a people bedeviled by war and
violent competition with other
European nations can change
the essence of a place, unless
one yields to untruth.

I do not and call the land
where John Smith landed:

Wingandacoa.

I Got My…

01 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Headshot -- Bill Watkins

I got my eyes from my mom,
she got hers from Scandinavian
Winters and endless days unseen
between songs, Viking memories
and Celtic dreams.

I got my soul from pain, rap music
and jazz from Dad and the strange
winds in life that turn Welsh into
“American,” stolen land and the
sin of slavery to work it.

A black nanny raised me, as one
raised Dad, his dad I’m sure
the same, in the deep south
still awaiting freedom and the
return of Native people—

whose gold was wisdom and love for
the land.  Unfortunately the
British and Spanish crowns, among
others sought metal and cash only,
skipped that which could

have been truly brought back
to save them more than even
great bible messages!

I got my humor from God
as I understand God, at the time
I prayed for one it was the
Judeo-Christian kind, biblical
certainly, then add to it some
Alcoholics Anonymous truth
and flavor, Al-Anon for the
family members or friends
of drunks.

I got poetry from the same
source a year before in 1995,
started to tell the truth,
has led me to more and more
until I now demand it from myself
and others.

I got some wisdom, as I spoke
of before—from the Native
American chiefs, who lived close
to and with the land.  They were
one with the Earth, listened and
knew how to live here.

Harmony and song, between us
and our lives;

the poetry of birth, landing, leaving—
dreaming and living those dreams.

The vision, inspiration—being
true to our callings;

Yell the truth with me, “We
Stole Land.”

***

I got my injuries from mistakes,
what hurts me most teaches
and challenges, the game so
fair it seems unfair!

I got to go, soon to remove
myself from Native American
land, I got my plan from the
conscience I got, when I
got sober and started to work
the twelve steps.

I got some peace listening to
the Tao Te Ching; Bibles and gospels
of nature, trying the impossible
task of capturing truth in words,
paper and ink, computer screens
and social media posts…

I’ll be saying this with a sigh,
as Frost said, somewhere ages and
ages—you know…

I got my song for the day, and
it’s been good, a day is life, karma
play, working no longer alone but
for the Great Spirit, the inkless god.

I’d rather be a poor original than
a fancy, loud, flying fraud