Purple hands

In an old boarding school picture

I saw those native boys

With purple hands

The anguish in their eyes

full of pain

From the nuns who bound                                                                                                                            

 their hands with ties

simply for being left-handed

And I felt my own left hand cramping up

-from the shame

--from the pain of being told

I couldn’t write with it.

Those white teachers in grade school

 told me it was wrong

and so they forced me

to write using my right hand.

And was it right?

To be taught this way?

An education pockmarked

with superstition

And in their beliefs

--I felt I was marked

by the beast of my kind

By their notions of me being wild

 backwoods, unrefined

I used to dig my nails into my left palm

So much that it hurt--that it bled

A stigmata self-made

A byproduct of shame

of being told I am one of Cain’s children

And I am marked

by the color of my skin

Doomed to be a stolen orphan

Buried in an unmarked grave

Just like those poor children

with purple hands

Crying through the photograph

I feel it still        echoing

in my mind, my memories

--of past trauma handed down to me

generation to generation

I am those children

Stuck in a system of nuns, of priests, of schools

That have tied me into their notion

That I can be taught to be just like them

That I can live a life without sin

And I cry and I want to unbind

Left hand, right hand

Wrong way, right way

And with this all of this

hatred and frustration

I forgot I had my own heartlines, lifelines, bloodlines

I cut off my own circulation

Chimera

I grew up mislabeled
Not a transexual
But traumatized like one
evil like a pentagram
i did not fit in
between the lions
and the lambs

if i am pagan
then i am a christian
either way
i am hated
by most religions
what's in my name?
In the dna?
That turned so many against me?

a sin to taint the family tree
truth can be a split-hooved thing

and so i did not honor
thy father and mother
i did not fit in
with all my wed-locked brothers

in the lion's den
the weakest one
does not survive the pride
my own father denounced me
long before he died

those venomous truths
still hiss at my heels
Those scaley thoughts
Make me unpeel
my name, my heritage
Born a bastard
I did not look like
All of the rest

And tho i am not satanic
I am deemed evil thru the aesthetic
From dog tooth and long nails
The christian ideology that kills the savage
Still prevails
--thru how my religious-raped family
Looks at me

And with the cutting of my mane
Went the dying innocent clasp
Of femininity
Neither him, nor her
Neither she, nor me

Death to Hydra

it is eel-like

the reach of corporations

who worm their way thru

loophole after loophole

to take imminent domain

over the landscape

for the sake of some coal

or even black gold

and often we are told

It will be good for the nation

but this is a nation

of encroaching corporations

who have sky-scraped

through Mount Olympus

to control the laws that

govern us

and corrupt the ones who swore

to protect us

this land is no mans land

when it can seized by a court order

stolen by bureaucracy

by proxy of a bank

It was only a matter of time 

before a new hydra was born

out of the entrails of a dead plutocracy

whose oily tentacles

have now reached across our waters

across our reservations

selling a pipe dream

To an awakening nation

It is time to fight oil for water

It is time to fight oil with blood

for we have countless ancestors

fighting through us

fighting with us

let their voices slay

the many heads

of the black snake

let our words be the scythe

let our prayers be the fire

that cauterizes the wounds

of this greedy beast of an empire

Colossus

It was soul heavy
generation crushing
these symbols
of false freedoms
that hang over us
as we stood in the Aryan shadow
of a new colossus

all the roads
lead to the same concrete idealogy
that the old gods
Always have to make way
For the new ones

And we--
the White Clay People
look up to the libertas
The mount rushmore
The barrier put in place
To divide and conquer
To make way for
For the systematic slaughter

their statues
marble-white
eyes soulless and blank
how befitting
they made it in their god's image
and we carved into the stone
inevitable perishable hieroglyphs
that the sun would bleach out
that the rain would wash away
because we knew we'd all go back
into that shaken etch-a-sketch
that we call earth

we had no coliseums
no great pyramids
just the sinking mounds
that the giants left us
but does that imply our existence
is less meaningful?
put it on a pedestal

we don't care to be carbon-dated
manipulated
Into theories that deny our place
here in the united states
invisible
With liberty and justice
For some

Old stones are crushed
Bones turned to cement
And plaster
But we did not mean
To be martyrs
Our own places of worship
Decimated to make way
For modern day culture

Because America was built in a day
so that only the whites can say
This is our land
And isn't it colossal
The joke made of my people
that we were somehow
Less worthy to hold dominion
Over these lands.

Ozymandias
Let the decay come
And free us

pow! wow!

I am the wow
in your pow!
I am intertribal
Yet I am always
dancing by myself

I am traditional
I am capable
--to adapt
and what of these labels
what of the blood degree
I am royal
yet I am able
to be inept

what is sacred
what is sacrilege
I am always thorough
but I am not purebred

I will have a vision
---when I want to
no one can govern
creativity
and so what if
i fail
does that reflect
upon
my native synchronicity

I speak naively
I speak so bravely
I speak whenever
The fuck I can

I have no medicine
I have no man
I am just a minority
Trying to fit in with the masses
Whenever I can

so just don't ask me
just don't bother me
don't seek any answers
to some kind of new age
divinity

I'm just a person
Trying to be wooed
Trying to be wowed
In a biased
Ethnocentric crowd

Pandora of Pine Ridge

Pandora of Pine Ridge
has settled in
she has opened her parfleche
that is her skin
she has learned the rez way
and her plagues don't
discriminate
will take you--gay or straight
wrapped in a papoose
and evangelical truths
she'll get through
with the booze
she'll steal the youth


And once its jarred
our earthenware heads
that these epidemics
are traditional-fatal
wrapped around
our family trees
another twisted vehicle
of countless tragedies

For generations
she has come
bestowing old testament gifts
who ever asked for this?
An extended olive branch
---of a missionary bitch?

Oh dear Pandora of Pine Ridge,
was it curiosity
that did us all in the end?
--to be culturally diverse
or maybe it was too perverse
to think we'd fit right in
with the new empire
of foreign titans

For Prometheus
Is doing time served
Do the fire people
Then, still
Get what they were deserved?

Hope is only a drink away.

Prometheus Pt.2

How long must we sizzle
in Zeus's judgement?
a wicked fate predestined
by the U.S. government

Who've resurrected their eastern gods
in statues and monoliths
to show their rule over us
with a heavy head
we bow to all the mt. rushmores
and libertas
it is collosal
the false freedoms
that hang over us

and if we were to resist
do we run the risk of being made
out as terrorists?
for the vulture
of this new Athenian culture
has taken its toll
on our livers
and upon our souls
around here
it's all about
the gods that you know

is the trick on the trickster
--that lovely creator?
for our livers
do not grow back
what Pandora unleashed
will not go back

bound to be forgotten
until the day comes....
oh Zeus,
just bring your son

UPDATE

3 of my poems have been accepted to yellowmedicinereview.com
The poems are:
Prometheus Pt. 1
Minotaur
and Chimera

They will appear in the spring issue 2012
due out any day now.

SOVEREIGN EROTICS

Here's a link to a new anthology I am currently a part of, its an amazing collection-the first of its kind and I am very proud to be a part of it

Minotaur

what bullshit
the government
spewed about us
while licking clean
the land of milk
and honey
and just how many
still worship
that golden calf
we call america
just raise up your flag
new Athenians
you'll never understand
this land
will never be just your land

for centuries
they've scoffed
and blew smoke
up their own asses
telling themselves
that we were the heathen ones
the savage in his loincloth
making a Minotaur
out of us

and they still know
how to maneuver well
in their labyrinth of lies
in this land of cow shit
attracting
the lord of the flies

there is a truth in fear
you've just got to know how
to shape it
you can manifest a destiny
you've just got to know
how to rape it

will we ever be able
to separate
the myth from the bullshit
O America,
Pasiphae,
--will you love your mixed blood
or kill it?

UPDATE


My poem Kid Icarus has been picked up
for an as yet to be titled anthology
due out sometime this year.

an afterthought

i am a pharaoh
painted on a casket face
and i dare not crack a smile
for if i do all of the colors
would bleed
and that would be the end
of pretty little stoic me
not much remains
behind my garments
you can open my mouth and see
there is no mention of you
and what was sacred
is shriveled up
or embalmed in canopic jars
waiting to be ransacked
it is just me in my apt now
the heiroglyphs
go unnoticed
--left to the afterlife with my cat
the other was looted
thought of as some kind of valuable
though nothing is eternal
just remnants of a time lost
are wrapped up loosely in me
of something african
or perhaps asian
--an old mystery that cares not
to speak of itself
but you would not find me special anyway
because my resting place
has not gone untouched
vandalised
several times
no more diamond-encrusted shine
behind my eyes
no sapphires ignite your interest
no gold-plated chest
just a whole lot of emptiness
and when you find i have
gone to ash, to dust
will you think of me/you?
and what we all go back into?

i hope in the next life
i shall never meet you

Here's a good review in Rapid City Journal
that I was interviewed for
Shedding Skins Review in RCJ

Janus

why not shut my eyes up on me
god of gates and doors?
with a stinging wince
i cannot bear witness
to my life anymore
---to any true meaning
i have shut down
at thirty
but am somewhere past fifty
now it seems i can't
even have a simple rage
the pheonix flew
but walked back to the cage
my mind falls like feathers
i pop a pill
---one good idea,
perhaps two
manages to permeate
through the gilded lids
"not good enough"
some demigods say
wants more purity
wants the removal of foreskin
even the oracle lies to me
---says just a little more suffering
and you'll be pure prophesy
the furies
the minotaurs
continue to bullshit on
courting the debutantes
who have all dyed their hair blonde
meanwhile Medusa
spits out bad poetry
i see the weight
on atlas's corroded palms
and so i lie
down
with my makeshift
laurel-leaf crown
i have overpleaded
to many gods
amongst the ashtray altars
been reborn in the
beer-drenched waters
and Venus with her clammy hands
was a sugarcoating bitch
i could not bear to stand
Not even Janus could
give me a new beginning
so when he turned away
---it was even more
insulting

DOG DAYS

The days here do not move
they drag on
like a dog pulling its dead legs
and there is simply
nowhere to get to
they just fester and blister
in the fullblown sun
snapping at me
like a wild thing
it's hot sour breath
melts me to sinewy meat
I am overwhelmed
by the manginess
of my poverty
an itch that cannot be scratched
a past that cannot be passed

I long for the days
when my eyes stared glossy
---a simple dull
like a puppies
even the moon picks on me
it's sickly yellow eyes
are daunting
the damn rays from its bald face
weigh on me
like porcupine quills
on a dog's snout
and there is no one around
to pull them out

KID ICARUS


Every Indian has a silver lining
I thought to myself
As I saw a young skin
Trying to fly
through downtown Pine Ridge
Amidst all the dirt clouds
He had speckles of silver paint
Around his mouth
And zeppelins
That were his fingertips
Making zig zags
Across the air
But he was going nowhere
I’d thought had the spray paint
Been gold
He’d be Icarus
Befittingly burnt by the sun

What mangy wings we have
Unable to get off the ground
Without a wicked substance
We are the meek
But we will not inherent a thing
Even if we could rise
With our degenerated bones
Most of us around here know
It’s a no-fly zone
How amazing
Those golden gates must be
But I cannot imagine standing
On a white cloud
Tracking mud into heaven
I would never be let in
Perhaps I should’ve ran to
That Gabriel Indian
Blowing into his plastic
Bag trumpet
Perhaps I should’ve rose up and joined him
It’d be the closest I’d ever get
in the sweet chariot, the sweet vapors
of a heaven

Hello. Just an update.
The new book that I am in along with
three other talented writers can now be preordered
at the following links:
SHEDDING SKINS

Shedding Skins: 4 Sioux Poets

WHITE CLAY PIGEONS

In White Clay, Nebraska
I go shopping with my sister
for groceries
“It’s cheaper here…”
she says,
“…Because no one wants to come here.”

upon checking out
the buzzard lady
scowls at the food stamp card
ready to pick
the stereotypes from our bones
but then she smiles
at my niece’s pretty little face
and leaves us quietly alone

outside the store
a broken wing
Indian
stumbles to our car door
"Cousin, cousin,
can you spare me some change
a quarter, a dime, anything?"

"No I don't have any money"
my sister angrily says,
loading up the groceries
But then the wounded thing
comes around to my end
I quickly fish out
what change I have
and chuck it at him
like bread crumbs

because I know
how close you can come
to flying
out there
in the real white world
I know how easy it is
to spread your wings
to want to soar
golden
and majestic
like the white men
only to crumble
into pieces
when someone shoots
down your dreams

in White Clay
the drunks pick each other up
when one of them
has fallen
So many shattered
So few that matter

*NOT CHINESE

Small towns seem to duplicate themselves
As ignorance shits out ignorance
Making a franchise out of my hell.
“No, I’m not going to steal from your store!”
I want to yell to the old white lady
Eyeing me from behind the counter.
“After all…that’s what your taxes are for.”
And I know that I should let karma do its job,
But I’m not that kind of Indian anyway.
I’m the one with the feather, not the dot.
Who am I though to say what I want to say?
I’m just one of those invisible type of minorities.
At least that’s what I heard,
That’s what I’m called on network TV.

“No Ma’m I’m not Chinese.”
I tell the white waitress working at the Oriental buffet.
“But hand me some chopsticks please…
…and I’ll be on my way.”
They call me Native American now
Because India holds the real Indians.
But it turns out that I’m just what people think I am
But what I am to them doesn’t make any sense.
But no, I’m not Chinese.
Or a Mexican-Redman-crossed the Bering Strait-type of Homo sapien.
But please hand me some chopsticks,
And I’ll play along
--With these know-it-all pricks.

*Originally appeared in
Red Ink Magazine

Coypright JoelWaters 2002.

*JAPANESE GARDENS

In the Japanese gardens
I wait for the H-Bomb
to drop.
I feel like
the little trees
they have cut and trimmed
into a forced bonsai.
As fake as the bamboo
house that I sit in.
Concentrating,
like the camps
the U.S. government
put our people in.
First the Indians,
and then Japanese Americans.
Preserving cultures
by putting up a fence.
Keeping it safe from us
as though we plan
to hara-kiri.
We should be so lucky.

Stone and cement
lanterns
light the way
of a dim view.
As though to say,
“Hiroshima
was not bombed into ash.”
Like the tree
they have planted.
In the garden,
where every culture
is perfectly positioned.
An origami America
that nobody wants to unfold.


*Originally Appeared in EATING FIRE, TASTING BLOOD.
Copyright Thunder's Mouth Press 2006.