Poetry

David Carson

By

Eric Allen Yankee

Seeking Pardon

Rubber bullets

     Concussion grenades

Crop dusting poison

Lost limbs Lost water Lost humanity

     Hail America

Pardon turkey

     Break the whistle

Register difference

     Raise arm

         Feast on

Pardon us while we eat your days

        and freeze your nights

The Remembered

This is for the Water Protectors

giving our children a drink.

They detonate the bombs

of Capitalism

against their bodies

to protect what’s left of the future.

A warrior loses the use of a limb in the night,

because the weapons used to fight protest

are indeed more fatal than the law

would have you believe.

The people of Standing Rock were born here,

but once again the ghosts

have come to dig into their soil

and spread their blood

on a white map.

The Protectors raised fists become eagle talons

as they stand before the bulldozers

and say “We are the people you will remember.”

Eric Allen Yankee

Eric Allen Yankee is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade of Chicago. His work appears in The People’s Tribune, Dirty Chai, The Good Men Project, The Olive Press, and others.  His poem “For Ebola Burners of Liberia” was nominated for a Pushcart by The Olive Press. He is co-editor of Caravel Literary Arts Journal.