War

This is not Star Wars
Like Star Trek
'Cause all this trekking and traveling
Has got me thinking that
This is not Star Wars
Where it's good vs. evil
And Princess Leah is really Luke Skywalker's sister
And you want Han Solo
And you crave Queen Amadala
This is not Star Wars
Where you don't know what to do
'Cause you're in the middle of the scene
Where Darth Vader tells Luke he's his father
And you've got a huge craving
For a left-over tamal
In the fridge
In the kitchen
Exactly ten steps away from
Any path of vision to the TV
And you don't know what to do
'Cause N'Sync is coming out
In the next movie
But you've had to go shit
Since Episode 1
But it doesn't matter
'Cause this is not Star Wars
Where you can just
Turn it off and
Go to sleep and
Resume the shooting and fighting
At 3:00 the next afternoon
Because there is no Yoda
There is no force
There is nothing
That tells the brave soldiers
What to do and
Where to be
But there is a Jabba the Hutt
Waiting to catch you
As his slave
He'll eat you up
And if you let him
He'll dress you up
Dress you up in skimpy, revealing
Yet horrendously ugly outfits
If you let him
And if you let him
He'll speak with a southern accent
Even though it irritates the crap out of you
And if you let him
He'll choke on pretzels
Or at least the press release will say as much
When really he was choking on something else.
And all the rich folks are thinking
"Well, his daughters are worse
Than those Mexicans"
But they are all saying
"He's doing good in office"
Oh, he's doing good in office
Yeah, he's doing someone real good in office.
He's sending our youth
To fight, kill, die overseas.
He's seeing our youth
Fight, kill, die in our schools.
We're seeing our youth
Fight, kill, die on our streets
In our barrios
But this is not Star Wars
It doesn't have a STOP button
Not even a PAUSE button
You can't just press MUTE
You can't just turn off your screen.
But, you can protect its release
You can stop it from being made
You can't make it go away
Unless you try.

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