Who we are

Who we are, originally uploaded by AnomalousNYC.

"Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country. ...Because this is America. This is who we are."
--George W. Bush

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings came through the sky to kill children and the blood of children ran through the streets without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.

Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave of pride and knives.

Treacherous generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with eyes and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find the bull's eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets!
- from Pablo Neruda,
"I'm Explaining a Few Things"

ORIGINAL IMAGE: unknown US Military
Image Alteration by AnomalousNYC, Lower East Side - USA.