Before I start this poem,
\nI\u2019d like to ask you to join me
\nIn a moment of silence
\nIn honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
\nlast September 11th.<\/p>\n
I would also like to ask you
\nTo offer up a moment of silence
\nFor all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
\ndisappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes
\nFor the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.<\/p>\n
And if I could just add one more thing\u2026
\nA full day of silence
\nFor the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands
\nof U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.<\/p>\n
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly
\nchildren, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of
\nan 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.<\/p>\n
Before I begin this poem,
\nTwo months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
\nWhere homeland security made them aliens in their own country.<\/p>\n
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
\nWhere death rained down and peeled back every layer of
\nconcrete, steel, earth and skin
\nAnd the survivors went on as if alive.<\/p>\n
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam \u2013 a people, not
\na war \u2013 for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning
\nfuel, their relatives\u2019 bones buried in it, their babies born of it.<\/p>\n
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a
\nsecret war \u2026 ssssshhhhhhh\u2026
\nSay nothing
\nwe don\u2019t want them to learn that they are dead.<\/p>\n
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
\nWhose names, like the corpses they once represented,
\nhave piled up and slipped off our tongues.<\/p>\n
Before I begin this poem.<\/p>\n
An hour of silence for El Salvador \u2026
\nAn afternoon of silence for Nicaragua \u2026
\nTwo days of silence for the Guatemaltecos \u2026
\nNone of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.<\/p>\n
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
\n25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their
\ngraves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the
\nsky.<\/p>\n
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.<\/p>\n
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore
\ntrees in the south, the north, the east, and the west\u2026
\n100 years of silence\u2026
\nFor the hundreds of millions of Indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
\nWhose land and lives were stolen,
\nIn postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek,
\nFallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.<\/p>\n
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of
\nour consciousness \u2026
\nSo you want a moment of silence?
\nAnd we are all left speechless
\nOur tongues snatched from our mouths
\nOur eyes stapled shut
\nA moment of silence
\nAnd the poets have all been laid to rest
\nThe drums disintegrating into dust.<\/p>\n
Before I begin this poem,
\nYou want a moment of silence
\nYou mourn now as if the world will never be the same
\nAnd the rest of us hope to hell it won\u2019t be.<\/p>\n
Not like it always has been.<\/p>\n
Because this is not a 9\/11 poem.<\/p>\n
This is a 9\/10 poem,
\nIt is a 9\/9 poem,
\nA 9\/8 poem,
\nA 9\/7 poem
\nThis is a 1492 poem.<\/p>\n
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.<\/p>\n
And if this is a 9\/11 poem, then:<\/p>\n
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.<\/p>\n
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.<\/p>\n
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.<\/p>\n
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.<\/p>\n
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
\nThis is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
\nThe 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
\nThe 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.<\/p>\n
This is a poem for interrupting this program.<\/p>\n
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
\nWe could give you lifetimes of empty:
\nThe unmarked graves
\nThe lost languages
\nThe uprooted trees and histories
\nThe dead stares on the faces of nameless children
\nBefore I start this poem we could be silent forever
\nOr just long enough to hunger,
\nFor the dust to bury us
\nAnd you would still ask us
\nFor more of our silence.<\/p>\n
If you want a moment of silence
\nThen stop the oil pumps
\nTurn off the engines and the televisions
\nSink the cruise ships
\nCrash the stock markets
\nUnplug the marquee lights,
\nDelete the instant messages,
\nDerail the trains, the light rail transit.<\/p>\n
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,
\nAnd pay the workers for wages lost.<\/p>\n
Tear down the liquor stores,
\nThe townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
\nPenthouses and the Playboys.<\/p>\n
If you want a moment of silence,
\nThen take it
\nOn Super Bowl Sunday,
\nThe Fourth of July
\nDuring Dayton\u2019s 13 hour sale
\nOr the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
\npeople have gathered.<\/p>\n
You want a moment of silence
\nThen take it NOW,
\nBefore this poem begins.<\/p>\n
Here, in the echo of my voice,
\nIn the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
\nIn the space between bodies in embrace,
\nHere is your silence,
\nTake it.<\/p>\n
But take it all\u2026
\nDon\u2019t cut in line.<\/p>\n
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.<\/p>\n
But we,
\nTonight we will keep right on singing
\nFor our dead.
\n______________________<\/p>\n
Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano\/Puerto Rican\/Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet residing in Minneapolis, MN. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, and is the coordinator of Guerrilla Wordfare, a Twin Cities-based grassroots project bringing together artists of color to address socio-political issues and raise funds for progressive organizing in communities of color through art as a tool of social change.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before I start this poem,
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