Photos and Poetry About Our Nation/ Turtle Island From Whom It was Taken

Bootleggers and Before: A Poetic Exploration of History and The Future

The piece I wrote below is in response to

The Rewind

whom I am very happy to see back on substack. She is a survivor of child rape and one of the kindest, smartest people I know, as well as one of the best poets.

As you may know by now, I write a lot of my poems in response to other peoples work and while I offer a perspective that may either add or in some cases disagree with

The Rewind

I have the greatest respect for her and think she is one of the best people of all times.

I will share her piece first, as it is excellent and also gives context:

This is AMERICA

A cultivation of malevolence has been sown
Feasting upon the bones of America—
Contaminating the sanctity of all that the light of day writes contrary to night.

Deception reigns from the plains to the sea. Our Sweet Land Of Liberty is being ravaged and squandered.

Children are trafficked and brutalized through networks of known bootleggers, and yet—no effort for a “Prohibition” of this—if only it were alcohol and not children—maybe then things would be different—the sheep still follow the shepherd and sit on the fence.

Fraud is vomited out of every Chief, Newscast and Newspaper.  Shameless contradictions fly from their mouths like locusts from the pages of Exodus.

Truth is a virtue and rests at Mount Vernon—a remnant of a time so far away—yet—not so long ago.

An unprecedented storm of the century—regime made—crosses our southern border daily, granting syndicates of gangsters the freedom to hijack apartment buildings—actual thieves in the night—This is The United States Of America.

Did you hear what I just said?

This is America.

This is NOT My America.

The thing is, I grew up in abuse—the thing I always knew though, was I am an American. In that knowing, I knew anything could be possible—even though the cards were stacked against me, if I worked hard—ANYTHING was possible.

America to me, was watching The Wonder Years and wishing I grew up like that—listening to Joe Cocker soulfully wail out “what would you do if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?  Lend me your ear and I’ll sing you a song—I will try not to sing out of key.”  It was watching that show, that embodied America for me—pictures of the family having a barbecue, the kids playing football in the street, the son and his dad playing catch—the episode where the neighbor kid didn’t come home from Vietnam, and the whole town felt the loss. From drive throughs and Johnny Cash, fireworks and the fourth of July, Take Me Home Country Roads, New York to California and everything in between—America is abundantly full of life.

Most of all—

America to me is heart.  It’s the beating of all the ones that fought for it and gave their lives because they believed in it, and it’s the beating of the hearts in the ones still here—still fighting.

Before Bootleggers

Even before

The Bootleggers

Like the Bronfmans

And so forth

Land speculators

Right and Left

Assessed the Land’s worth

Argued in the Congress

And the Court

Who can Steal the Land

The States

Or the Federal

But both are stealing it for sport

This was always what they planned

Steal and sell

Outlaw whoever gets in the way

What the hell

Based on pseudo Christian Eyes

Discovering it

Papal bulls

The same Catholic Church

Raping its pupils

Said whichever Christian prince in the name of the Costume hat and the cape

Long after It was Inhabited by People In the Image of Creator

The papal bullshit

And with divine decree

They made Christendomination

The regulators

Of Genocide and trafficking of humans

Young and old

Called it godly and bold

So before there was a country to be proud of

There were the predecessors of the bootleggers

Marching the legs of the Indians/Native Nations

Off their land and to their deaths

Or assimilation

A form of genocide

Where you exist but have no name, no sense of where you or from what land

You became

Enrolled or unenrolled

The United States can legally extinguish whatever sovereignty remains

Because of what Ruth Bader Ginsberg reaffirmed in 2005

The Marshall Trilogy etched with the murderous guilt of Cain

So while I love many things about our constitution, including its commitment to free speech

And the power to impeach

And I would rather United States sovereignty retain

Than to find freedom detained

In Transnational

Agenda 2030 goals

Gone insane

The Institution

Called America

Named after an Italian

Navigator does

Need to atone

For its corruption

From its inception

And the theft and genocide

Through which its land amassing came

The foundation is ill-begotten

And repentance is the only game

That will open up the way

For those who love their neighbor

And know that means the one society rejects

To which the mainstream objects

And those who love freedom

Who must claim it for all - including and first the First Nations

Those are holy, True obligations