Christopher Columbus, crawl back in your hole!
\nTake you Nina, Pinta and Santa Magreedier!
\nWe know what you did in Hispaniola!
\nWe watched silver helmets glint in the sun.
\nWe saw you claim our island for Spain!
\nIdiot!
\nLook what you\u2019ve done!
\nHow many millions of lives lost,
\nHow many holocasusts
\nWould burn up the centuries
\nSo you could fill your coffers with gold?<\/p>\n
Christopher Columbus
\nTake them all with you–
\nLincoln and Washington, and Jefferson, too.
\nNone of them gave a damn about us!
\nThey said we were \u201csavages,\u201d
\nThey killed us for sport.
\nEver read about Lincoln and the Black Hawk War?
\nIf Lincoln wanted to \u201cfree the slaves,\u201d
\nHow come he didn\u2019t give a damn
\nAbout their red brothers?
\nJefferson pimped for \u201cdemocracy\u201d
\nBut signed the Removal Act to defraud the Cherokees.
\nAnd Washington\u2014\u201cFather\u201d of his country?
\nPlease! You\u2019re killing me! Don\u2019t make me laugh!<\/p>\n
Christopher Columbus\u2014Genoa scum!
\nTake Ferdinand and Isabel\u2014bane of the Jews!
\nBane of the Moors, too, who gave Spain a culture!
\nYou can leave Jesus behind.
\nIf you want to leave the sandaled carpenter behind,
\nWe\u2019ve got work for him, work with honor.
\nWe\u2019ve got to undo 500 years of your damned interfering:
\nWe\u2019ll re-plant forests and heal the sky.
\nWe don\u2019t know if we can do it.
\nYou took the last kernel of our hopes and crushed it.
\nYou took our hope away and gave us fear.
\nYou took our hope\u2014but not our courage.
\nCourage to resist you, even after 500 years!<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all under your boots now, your jackhammer boots!
\nTake your bloody history
\nForward and backward and what have you got?
\nThe Spaniards came and rode us like lamas\u2014literally!
\nThey climbed on our backs and whipped us till we dropped.
\nThe French came looking for pelts.
\nThey took more than they needed so they made
\nBeaver-fur hats\u2014a Parisian fashion statement!
\nThe Anglos came and never stopped coming.
\nThey slaughtered each other over our land.
\nThey never stopped slaughtering.
\nThey made great speeches about freedom and liberty
\nWhile their vampirish mouths ran with our blood.<\/p>\n
Christopher Columbus, crawl back in your hole!
\nTake your economy and your progress and
\nAll the appurtenances of \u201ccivilization.\u201d
\nTake your death culture and your sordid manias.
\nWe\u2019re sick of you and your hypocrisies.
\nAnd we\u2019re gathering!<\/p>\n
We\u2019re singing the Ghost Song and dancing the Ghost Dance,
\nGathering on the hills when you shut your eyes;
\nWhispering in your dreams
\nAnd crying in your nightmares.
\nAnd howling as your towers fall,
\nYour bridges buckle,
\nYour levees are breached,
\nYour schools implode,
\nAnd your children grasp you with their bloody claws.<\/p>\n
______________________________________<\/p>\n
Gary Corseri is a m<\/em>ember of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/a> He<\/em> has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including,<\/em> TMS (Transcend Media Service<\/a>)<\/a>, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and<\/em> Counterpunch.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on<\/em> PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.\u00a0 Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n An earlier version of this poem appeared at <\/em>Dissident Voice in 2007.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christopher Columbus, crawl back in your hole!
\nTake you Nina, Pinta and Santa Magreedier!
\nWe know what you did in Hispaniola!
\nWe watched silver helmets glint in the sun.
\nWe saw you claim our island for Spain!
\nIdiot!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}