Look Ben, I been thinking about the
Continuity of our text,
The Anthem,
and
it won't be enough,
lullaby's and war cries is what
america wants now.
Tolstoy could do it
the petty, the daily, the grandiose
The monumental and mundane
At this point I just wanna go hide in
some Lake Woebegone
and raise children that grow strong
far away from the terror and
the Columbines sure to come,
And suicide bombers that can never truly be stopped
We have access to the Senate Library
I went to a five keger party with
Chief Rienquist and the 4th Circuit Judges,
those fuckers know how to party

I talked two students at American University,
An Israeli girl whose little sister
rides the school bus with her feet up on the seat
she doesn't want them torn off
when the bus gets blown up,
a Palestinian girl who saw
Israeli soldiers kill a man before her eyes,
She didn't speak for a year
A silent anthem,
is this our continuity Ben Bull?
The link is there somewhere.
Not just in me.
the statue above the Capitol is an
Indian Warrior?
He's facing
West,
unable if not unwilling to face the
Onslaught to come,
What his anthem?

I'm just asking because
I'm in the District here having conversations with
Pandas at the Zoo,
Mao hated pandas,

There were storm clouds above the Capitol the night
the
Dubya spoke to the nation about
September 11th,
Tombstone Skies
Then as if on cue it began to rain hard,
a storm,
angry
A storm with ghosts in it.
Lincoln, addicted to Louden which
contained a tincture of opium?
Crazy Horse used to eat peyote before battle,
He understood his enemy,

the Madhatter lives in Capitol Hill,
The Buffalo Soldiers were the Best Indian hunters,
Oppressed as oppressor,
Patriotism is the last refuge to which a
scoundrel clings,
Dylan said that - the greatest chicano poet ever.

I met some rabid Redskin fans in Virginia Beach,
and it's gonna be a
Killer Season,
Susan lost her sense of taste, still she made
a delicious dinner for molly and I
the Lakota ate Pemmican before battle
Kendra left yesterday,

talked to Psalm today
about what it's like to be
young
black
and a
man
in
DC
Ngozay say's it all gets mixed up to her
the penetentiaries
to now

And if I don't go to that Jersey stripper club?
Well, then the terrorists win.
if we don't do that 8 ball,
then the terrorists win, see?

I am invisible here, in the land of the
Oblique,
thoughts, elusive like a moth
Down here with the
Ghost Trains, the Metro
they are running at capacity
It's 3 a.m. in the District,

Alice in Wonderland was published
the same year of Lincoln's assassination,
writers: get your books published early next year!

Are you grief counselling me Ben?

I pick up the little bits,

I know a Howard student who sells herb to
Congressional Aids on the Hill,
Now that is a roll model,
He's my best friend here in the District,

Woody could write your anthem,
The Donner Party had 'no fear' bumper stickers on
their
wagon trains,
I think I make white people uncomfortable,

My mother is half Syrian,
My very own smoking gun for sure,

But my father may have Sephardic-Jewish
roots
For my 15th birthday i had a pinata shaped like a
dreidel
Concentric Circles
in
Chocolate City
Cortez and Cuatemoc
yes, I'm an autumn
all Mixed up and
connected,
Freedom Fighters?
stinger missles
Handmaids Tale
Sparta
Iran-Contra?
Pinochet?
War on Drugs
Oliver North
Who killed the Kennedy's?
smoke those bandits out,
CIA kills Che Guevarra and now
kids in the suburbs wear his tee shirts
The sins of our fathers
The touch of thirteen swords knighting our futile
efforts, no longer illuminated by fifty
darkened stars.
i am fond of the mexican immigrants with
3, 4 and 5 flags to a car,
cop: where are your papers?
mex: no papers senor, just flags!
cop: go on then...

that is our narrative,
Sorry Ben Bull from Arlington, Texas,
Sorry too to my kibuts soccer coach
We cannot find your anthem,
Mohammed the Cab Driver gave me a copy of the Koran
"Whoever slays a soul, it is as though he slew all
men"
Mohammed was a prophet,
We are non profit
my altar of sticks and tobacco face
downtown
the backstreat boys were at ground zero today
whores
is americca gonna be pissed when they find out that
the three
wisemen are in the taliban!
Sometimes the face of terror where's a mask
Sometimes the face of terror is John Wilkes Booth or

Timothy McVeigh,

Right now,
the face of terror
mostly
looks
like
me.

Freeze!

I'm not an Arab Terrorist.
I'm an equity actor.

Black out.

Richard Montoya is a member of Culture Clash

(c) Copyright 2001 Richard Montoya