Shrine

Shrine

Behold!  This Shrine to me!

Put your hands together

As if praying to a deity

For I am something

I'm still working on, what?

But here's the Shrine anyway

It has been made

Of the rarest stone

In this country:

The Stone cut from

Mount Rushmore

Oh I'm not on the mountain

I just acquired the largest pieces

Of the rock fall

From the blasting

Think about it.

Some from Lincoln

Some from Roosevelt 

Some from Jefferson

Some from Washington

Pieces

All shipped to my crew

In Iowa

It's a shame it's been wasted

All these years

Assembled into this Shrine:

Tall columns

Looking like quilts of stone,

Glue dripping to their bases.

Every 10 or 15 feet:

A squished chipmunk.

I'll have a chat with the foreman.

Oh, but this holy place

Where I'd seen all this stone

Just laying below this ugliness

As a child growing into adult

More than once a year

We'd traipse as family 

With visiting, uninitiated guests

Unto the American “holy of holies”

Re-endoctrinating ourselves 

In the hatred of the poor,

Marginalized, former owners

Of this destruction

Honoring ongoing destructions

Of societies everywhere else.

In the name of our god

We praised these idols

And our god shook his finger

At us saying:

“Look, I published some stones

You've read about, and well,

You're not going along

With the program, commandment-wise."

So, as long as some of this mountain

Was wasted by a racist carver

What the heck, I'll use it.

Look.  Statues of great Lakota, Hunkpapa, Oglala, Miniconjou, Sans Arc, Blackfeet, Two Kettles, Brulé, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho

Chiefs who pincushioned Custer

And his merry band.

All surrounding this Shrine,

Where inside written in stone,

is my apology to native kids

I did not befriend in school:

Among others I rejected

As lovers.

This poem does not solve

My problem

Or THE problem. 

It just states the obvious,

Among which

Are soldiers who received

The Medal of Dishonor

At the massacre 

Of Wounded Knee,

Natives beaten, killed, or disrespected

By Rapid City Police,

South Dakota State Police,

Every white politician of the town,

And state including

Governors Bill fucking Janklow

And the last female mess.

There.

Now, I feel wonderfully relieved

Like a good, useless liberal.

Oh, there's a mouse-sized

Statue of Donald Trump

Carved out of buffalo patty

Coming out of his hole

In a non-conspicuous corner.

A tiny sign announcing

His presence:

“Here comes the Coward”

And everything the Epstein files

Have to say

On a flash drive jammed

In his tiny mouth.

Barry G. Wick

https://agereasonmistake.blodspot.com

Paypal: rikwrybac@yahoo.com