My last post to the rag blog was so sweet — much sweeter than my reputation! — and today’s news of the Chilean dictator’s death prompted me to resurrect this poem from 30 years ago.
As Mr. Dylan said some years ago, “Maybe I’m too sensitive, or else I’m gettin’ soft.” Mariann Wizard
A Poem Written in Blood
(for ché ché)
of “natural causes”, they claim.
Is it natural to rip a man’s heart from his body,
to satisfy usurers and thieves?
Poor pound of flesh!
They have killed
Do they think they have killed poetry?
They have killed Salvador Allende.
Do they think they have killed truth?
They have killed twenty thousand chileños.
Do they think they have killed
Puppets!
“
you are as clumsy as your masters!
The Watergate floodtide flushes down the
splashing its stain on Tricky & Spiro,
on Connally &
on
on bureaucrats & buggers –
Tag, you’re I.T.T.!
Does
his sweaty lips moving
when the generals in
proclaim their martial law?
Dig it:
if
was financed by Cubans
who wanted to overthrow our electoral process, see;
so he hired some gusanos
who want to overthrow
to undermine our democratic safeguards,
and find out if they were being overthrown!
Oh yeah, baby, and then,
he spent some more of I.T.T.’s money
to overthrow the elected government of
because he figured it had been undermined
by some of that Cuban cash!
Hasn’t
that
Let I.T.T. do the same!
of heart disease?
this is a disease of the heart!
of cancer?
Cancer
and be ashamed!
of murder!
And the people of the world are in mourning
and enraged.
In the stadium, the young people
link arms and sing The Internationale.
Their song is punctuated
by the butchers’ bullets.
Let these young martyrs’ fiery song
join your poetic legacy.
It is written in
Puppets!
You cannot use that heart,
ripped from that body,
to grant yourselves reality, legitimacy, acceptance by
the human race.
Those muscles will not work for you.
Those arteries will not bear your transport.
No rhythm will establish normalcy for your
disgraceful existence.
throbbing, tense, blood-red, red-hot.
September, 1973
