September 30, 2006

• A Moment of Silence...

  This brings tears to my eyes, and I wanted to share it with YOU...

   

  A MOMENT OF SILENCE BEFORE I START THIS POEM

   

  September 11, 2002

  by Emmanuel Ortiz

   

  (you can listen to the poem read http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/music/Moment-of-Silence.mp3 )

   

   

  Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me

  In a moment of silence

  In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th.

  I would also like to ask you

  To offer up a moment of silence

  For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,

  For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US.

  And if I could just add one more thing ...

  A full day of silence

  For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

  Six months of silence for the million and a half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.

  Before I begin this poem ...

  Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,

  Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.

  Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

  Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin

  And the survivors went on as if alive.

  A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

  A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh....

  Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.

  Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,

  Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

  Before I begin this poem ...

  An hour of silence for El Salvador ...

  An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...

  Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...

  None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.

  45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas

  25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.

  There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.

  And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west ...

  100 years of silence ...

  For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,

  Whose land and lives were stolen,

  In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...

  So you want a moment of silence?

  And we are all left speechless

  Our tongues snatched from our mouths

  Our eyes stapled shut

  A moment of silence

  And the poets have all been laid to rest

  The drums disintegrating into dust.

  Before I begin this poem,

  You want a moment of silence

  You mourn now as if the world will never be the same

  And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.

  Not like it always has been.

  Because this is not a 9/11 poem.

  This is a 9/10 poem,

  It is a 9/9 poem,

  A 9/8 poem,

  A 9/7 poem.

  This is a 1492 poem.

  This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.

  And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:

  This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.

  This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.

  This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.

  This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

  This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes

  This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told

  The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks

  The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.

  This is a poem for interrupting this program.

  And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?

  We could give you lifetimes of empty:

  The unmarked graves

  The lost languages

  The uprooted trees and histories

  The dead stares on the faces of nameless children

  Before I start this poem we could be silent forever

  Or just long enough to hunger

  For the dust to bury us.

  And you would still ask us

  For more of our silence.

  If you want a moment of silence

  Then stop the oil pumps

  Turn off the engines and the televisions

  Sink the cruise ships

  Crash the stock markets

  Unplug the marquee lights

  Delete the instant messages

  Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

  If you want a moment of silence
  Put a brick through the window of Taco Bell

  And pay the workers for wages lost.

  Tear down the liquor stores,

  The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.

  If you want a moment of silence

  Then take it

  On Super Bowl Sunday

  The Fourth of July

  During Dayton's 13 hour sale

  Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful people have gathered.

  You want a moment of silence

  Then take it NOW

  Before this poem begins.

  Here, in the echo of my voice,

  In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,

  In the space between bodies in embrace,

  Here is your silence.

  Take it.

  But take it all ...

  Don't cut in line.

  Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.

  But we,

  Tonight we will keep right on singing ...

  For our dead.

  EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002

  http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/silence.html

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano/Puerto Rican/Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet residing in Minneapolis, MN. He is the author of a chapbook of poems, The Word is a Machete, and his poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including two books published in Australia: Open Boat - Barbed Wire Sky (Live Poets' Press) an anthology of poems to aid refugees and asylum-seekers, and Passion for Peace: Exercising Power Creatively (UNSW Press). His poetry will also appear in the forthcoming FreedomBook, an anthology of writings in support of Puerto Rican political prisoners. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, and is the coordinator of Guerrilla Wordfare, a Twin Cities-based grassroots project bringing together artists of color to address socio-political issues and raise funds for progressive organizing in communities of color through art as a tool of social change.

   

   

  • 6:02 am
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