Bandera Haiku

dirty war flags flap
in the desert, venomous
tongues of an empire.

A Poem in Protest

this bruised face
of a poem
did not want to be born
into the 21st century

truth be told
i would rather be describing
the red-winged flower
of my lover's embrace

i would rather be searching
for my father
and his missing syllables
in a haiku

but i am vomiting
this splintered song of a poem
trapped like a tangled scream
in my throat
split open and raw in the chest

this is a poem standing in protest
among arrogant stallions
riding into yet another century
loaded guns
tomahawk missiles in the air

this is a poem bearing witness
to U.S. sanctioned bullets
entering the bodies
of 13-year-old boys
throwing stones at military tanks
in occupied territories

this is a poem in protest
of giant metal-mouthed bulldozers
crumbling homes crushing skulls

this is a poem documenting
unlawful incarcerations
secret deportations
the fostering of a hooked-on-fear TV nation

this is a poem in protest
of first world bullies who ambush
with ammunition bombshells fighter jets
rhetoric of terror to terrorize

this is a poem born of necessity
an imperative response
to a plague ­violence violence

violence will not silence this poem
surfacing like a prayer

surfacing like corpses
in rivers and deserts

we have been here before

Vietnam The Phillipines
Nicaragua Panamá
El Salvador Afghanistan

body bags for the few
mass graves for the many

the ghosts of the unnamed are gathering
like a sandstorm in this poem

this is a poem in protest
in non-cooperation
with the puppeteers of war
in protest of pandemic propaganda
in protest of pipelines over people
in protest of patriotism that ignores
the growing pile of bodies
men women children
whose stories will not be televised

this is a poem in protest
of the muted body counts
the glamorized military billboards
the testosterone-driven Hummer invasion
the camouflage-and-flag fashion sensation

this is a poem in protest
of pep rallies for battle
just for the record
war is not a football game
this is not a cowboy movie
Iraq is not a video game

this is a poem standing in protest

it is true
the war machine
is a well-armed giant
a dinosaur of power

and i am only a woman
with a poem in her hand

but this poem
void of exploding grenades
and bright-colored cluster bombs
will not relinquish its logic
its pissed-off stance
its memory

it will be a petition of opposition
stapled to the scripted transcript
of conquest

it will be a fist
full of flowers
held up to the sky
in defiance of death and destruction

a litany of blood prints
tagged
on the walls
of an empire

this is a poem in protest
joining the international chorus of millions
a growing sea of boundless voices
so great and so widespread

that all the weapons
of mass destruction
and all the warlords
of the world

cannot silence
or bomb us away

© 2004 Olga Angelina García. From the Red CalacArts Publications chapbook ¿Under What Bandera? AntiWar Ofrendas from Minnesota y Califas.