ODE TO HOPEFULLY THE LAST EMPIRE

This fiery indictment by Pedro Casaldaliga is modeled after Ode to Roosevelt by Nicaraguan poet Reuben Dario. It is painful and eye opening to understand how this country is seen by those who have been on the receiving end of our "freedom fighters." Five billion in aid and over seventy thousand deaths  to El Salvador alone in the Reagan/Bush era. 

ODE TO REAGAN

You are being excommunicated by me and the poets, the children, the poor of the land:

Pay attention!

We’ve got to see the world in human terms.

Don’t play Nero.

This isn’t a movie, you screen monkey.

You’re the leader of a great nation!

(I’ll tell your people to clean off forever the shit your cowboy boots have tracked over your flag.

And I’ll tell them, when they vote, to realize they may be selling a lot of blood and their own honor!)

You may have inebriated the world with Coca Cola, but there is still someone lucid enough to tell you “No!”

The profits and power of your weapons cannot be valued above the feverish wail of a little black child.

Empires no longer suit the race of human beings.

Listen Reagan,” the sun rises as sun for everyone and the same God rains over every life god has invited to the celebration.

No people is greatest.

Take care of your own back yard.

Respect us.

Rachel has found you out Herod, and you will have to answer for her desolation.

Sandino’s star is waiting for you in the hills and in the volcano a single heart awakes: like a sea of indignation, little girl Nicaragua will smash your aggression.

The blood of martyrs sustains our arms and becomes a song and fountain in our mouths. You have never seen the hills, Reagan, nor have you heard in their birds the voice of the voiceless. You know nothing of life and song means nothing to you.

Don’t come to us with hypocritical morality, you mass murderer, you’re aborting a whole people and their revolution!

The lie you pass off to the world (and to the pope) is the worst drug. You are showing Freedom (in an exclusive screening) while you block the way to Liberation.

“The United States is powerful and mighty.” All right! “In God… we Trust.” You may think you’re the owners, you may think you have everything, even god, your god- the bloodstained idol of your dollars, the mechanical Moloch- but you don’t have the God of Jesus Christ, the Humanity of God! I swear by the blood of His Son, killed by another empire, and I swear by the blood of Latin America-now ready to give birth to new tomorrows- that you will be

 the

last

(grotesque)

emperor.