Pudgy Indian

The desert is vast
abandoned towns
houses with boards and broken glass
for windows
where looking out
or in
seems like some sort
of crime.

It is awe
I feel
at the vast beauty
of a world
that would unconsciously cook my body
and soul
in its brutal
and loving
summer heat.

Abandoned homes
and businesses
line the valley floors
between naked hills
bare to the creator and earth.
Bare, yet full of life
tough and brave
and abandoned cars
and houses
and businesses
fallen down
collapsed
with random acts of casinos
and brothels.

and here
on the desert floor
a flourishing business of mass slaughter
and death
munitions dumps
playgrounds with twin 50's
gleaned from old ships
for children to learn to love
the art of killing their fellow human beings
but there are no children to be seen
in the desert heat
that isn't that hot yet
in this late spring.

Where the town of Hawthrone
is decorated with giant bullets
from the big cannons of battleships
and all sorts of military attire
in a town where the Naval Warfare Center
houses its fields
of death and slaughter
just down the road
from the Nuclear Test Site
ran by the Bechtel Corporation.
Death...it's good for business.

Here in the land of the Shoshone
Here on their land
their land
their land
on their land
a land not recognized
by the officiates of death
the business of mass slaughter
is perfected
into a sickening artform
where liberal and genocidal
white men of peace and war
ridicule my honey and I
in racist and classist form.

We stand divided
from our imperialist
genocidal occupiers
and our peaceful
genoicdal occupiers
who hand out insults
both peaceful and genocidal
like handing out candy
to children
on Halloween.

Here on the desert floor
on Shoshone land
we are looked down upon
by all forms of occupiers
who have come to save us
from ourselves
or slaughter us
for themselves.

But
they haven't finished us off
though they've tried for so long
and we kneel
before their valley of death
and pray for the land
and one and all
to the voiced insults
of soldiers and cops
behind the line
an illusion
a line where on the other side
people are successful
and drive SUV's and fast cars
and insult us as they pass
and I know they face greater cancer rates
I know their fast cars and SUV's
come at the expense
of many slaughtered throughout their brief illegal time
in creating higher cancer rates
amongst those who feel the fallout
in towns nearby
and long gone
abandoned
with broken glass and boards
for windows
cars sitting so long
their tires have melted away.

We knelt before the line
with insults from those on both sides
carried in our souls
I try to protect our pipes
from my negative thoughts
as I know when we put them back in the bag
we aint nothin' but a couple of ludicrous
Red Niggers
to both sides of the line
where peaceful and warlike
genocidal white men
are ready to explain to us
the inferiority
of our place
...in our world.

It doesn't end for us
as our world has become
a giant boarding school
in a radioactive nation.