A Columbus Day Poem

Colombus Day Observed 2006

I wanted to sleep in today,

Warm beneath my sheets,

Warm inside my house,

Leaving the early crisp October chill just beyond my comprehension,

Behind barred and shaded windows

That keep me and the public shielded from reality

But the sound of US sponsored bullets

Ricocheting off of innocent Iraqi skin

Shook me from my sleep and pulled me out of bed

A screaming reminder me that no matter what the calendar says

It’s still the same colonization invasion game going down

On this so called U S of A holiday.


I wanted to mourn today

Stay home and dress in black for the Palestinians and Lebanese killed by Israeli soldiers today.

I wanted to light candles for Afghanistan

Burn incense for the first nations

And cry my eyes out for Filiberto y Puerto Rico.

The 514 year old wounds bleed fresh

Spilling raped, mixed blood.

And I wanted to fast today

Deny my body the comfort

Of first world fast food disposable genitically modified drugs

But my children,

Born and yet to be born

Demanded to be fed

Demanded answers for their homework from the halls of miseducation.

Because she has off today

to celebrate her so called discovery

And I am left nervous

Wondering if when I remind her of the truth

She’ll agree that we were better left uncivilized.


I wanted to celebrate today,

By torching court houses and tearing down prison walls,

bombing national monuments

And taking back every last thing that has been stolen from me and those before me

From us.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs a huge

“FUCK YOU y VETE PA’L CARAJO”

to the spirit of Columbus marching down Fifth Avenue

and the Italianos using genocide as costume for their pride

But I was too busy struggling to survive today.

I was too busy working today.

I was too busy counting change to get onto the under constant terror alert subway today,

With its cops with machine guns standing in front of NYPD recruitment ads

the ones with the White cop hugging a Latina viejita?

I had to get to my job

as a 12 dollar an hour corporate whore for hire

Watching billions of bloody dollars

Being robbed from the third world and the third world within.


Finally when the day comes to a close

And I return

Defeated by another day

I can drown my sorrows in the made for t.v. scripted news

Falling asleep to the drone of lies we’ve gotten too used to.


In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue

And got lost

But not lost enough.

- Mamita Mala

H/T to Professor Zero who linked to this author in his excellent post today.