LUCY LOOKS TWICE
(Sees So Much More Than I)

WARNING This is not a tame poem, it is very long, (15 pages), and cries out at a Christian world that committed an unprecedented holocaust by sending an entire continent of Native American Indian Civilization INTO OBLIVIAN. As a farmer, as a tree thinner, I find myself muddied in this poem. I also find Jesus saying, Where did I say, "Don't do as I do, Don't do as I say?" If a poem like this offends you, there is beautiful artwork and mellower poems to enjoy throughout this Web Site. ENJOY. This poem has it's roots in two 1970's classic books, "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee," and "Custer Died For Your Sins." These were very difficult books for me to read emotionally. In my Agricultural Humanities Degree from NDSU, one of the core blocks of study was Native American Indian Culture. Lucy Looks Twice was the daughter Of the fabled Lakota mystic, and medicine man, Black Elk, and this poem is dedicated to her and her family

.

The dark of the dawn and the dusk are mating
Black wings of dust
Have set upon the prairie
The tribal lands are scattered
To the sand to the sand
And the greedy white man
Has all the sand in his hand
While the question, "Who done it"?
Lies buried in time
Lost in a nation
That cares not for its answer

"who Who done it "?
Who spilt the blood of the sacred lamb?
Of the Navaho nation, of the medicine man.?
"Not I" sayeth the black eyed Jesuit
Soldier for Christ
Preacher of ONE-GOD bearer of HIS-WORD
JESUS-JESUS, and fear of ALL-A MIGHTY
Taught to the savage in the dark frontier
HOSANNA-HEY-MANNA the white man’s here
Zanna-Zanna-Hey get off MY land
I got a title, I got a deed
I got a shotgun in your face half breed.

No, not SHIVA, JEHOVA
Or any of ALLAH’S kind
But stop a second, hear a second, pray a second please
Will anyone take responsibility for this gutless deed?"

                                                 .............................

Not I" lectured Bishop Whipple
Who counseled with the Sioux
To lay down their sacred lands
In exchange for
Great-White-Fathers hand

With pony soldiers bucking at his back
And promises falling, like daisies from his gunny sack
He explained how GOD willed
That HIS Indian children
Be left with NOTHING
Nothing
But Decaying Piles
Of buffalo bones
In the end
That’s ALL his INDIAN children had for homes

Subfreezing  temperatures
Howling winds
Nothing to ware
And our history books say it was disease
"They had no immunity"
That killed them there.

To the victor goes the history books!!

Bang the drum, Bring on the parade, We won the war.

Thank you Clinton, for visiting this decay
but you are a century late
Your presidency's over, and now you awake

"No, No, not I"
I came to write treaties of peace
"Sign them or Die then, You, My heathen snake people,
My deer primal beasts of the plains.
You my sons, my daughters
Living in the devils sway
Your religious festivities
So soaked in sexuality
So  in need of civilized chains
COME, I bring God,  and RAILROADS
                                        I   bring      New Technology
                                        Into your   Domain.
                                                           Here are your passwords
                                                           Don’t lose them, forget them, or show them to anyone

My heart is bleeding
I am so open to your pain
I CARE so deeply
My love is a river
Here is my hospice
I've brought you a mattress
To lie down and die on

But if you tare off the tag,
What ever is left that you own
I shall reclaim!

..........................

"Not I" mustered the master of munitions
Indians too, fired cold the bullets I cast
Raised high their fire-sticks and bloodied the sky
It was game for all to join and play, to circle the wagons, to chant and prey
Though the dice were loaded, the dice were cast
And They divided the prairie amongst them like wax
           It was so easy to carve, so easy to tax.

"It’s blood and guts
This bronze portrays
I cast it myself
So not a moment's emotion
Got tampered with or lost"

"I hail the Cheyenne, the once strong
Dog Soldiers and their dead bones

"I’ve captured them
Riding
The breath of the wind
Aflame
With the fires  Of Eternity
Chanting"

A Calvary so exquisite in its barbarian rags
That never was seen it’s like
on any history page
That their rage
Still does not storm over these sacred hills
Is a tribute to our iron and steel

Here’s to the belching foundries

Here’s to the machine gun silence

Of a White-Mans-Will.

                                                              ..................................

I was a populist at work for the people."
Lauded President Sharp-Knife
Castrator of the finest Cherokee Civilization
Of their most literate nation

                                                          Dear reader, Dear reader
                                                          D id you KNOW

DID YOUR GRADE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY BOOKS
TELL YOU THE TRUTH
JUST SO
Or did they brush over Delicate history
With little WHITE LIES
Never once mentioning

How the Cherokee Nation
Had a higher literacy rate
Then any US state at its’ time
That they had a non voting representative in congress
Were applying for statehood
When the great populist president of his time
Shot our nation, shot our destiny, shot our heart

DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD

With these words of oblivion
"No Indian shall stop Georgia’s expansion"
            By God, The Trail of Tears is the FINAL SOLUTION
‘Chief Justice Marshall has written his decision
Let him enforce it"
              Or down it for breakfast.
              What can he do,
"Where is his army"
              I got a plan, I got the money.
             Hey there you Cherokee pigeon
               Here is a dollar
                     "Make me a wagon to send your people to HELL"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I?, Nay never,
I was the Utmost General in Lincoln’s command
I moved a mountain, I freed the damned
Remember , it was I who sent a million or six men
Down to the swamps in a hot southern battle
We freed the black niggers
From rotten iron cages
That crippled each spirit
And stoned each brain
So badly was he smitten
He barely could scream

" Now, if Only he could read
He could cast his ballet
He could sign his name
He could own that document that set him free
I guess there's a time and a place for such things
Down the road, In another century "

God, Must we wait another century ?

I ran for office
I was called to be President
I took command
There were rebellious Indians
We made a stand
The railroad was growing
The golden spike
Just had to be slammed
It was Manifest Destiny
It was the new Jerusalem
Indian be damned

So, yes, I sent those Yankee Soldiers
Out loose in the west
With canon and fodder
And treaties be damned
Until Sheridan and Sherman
And Custer at his Best
Rode through their teepees
Sliced through their tents
With bugles blaring and bayonets

It was "devil take my soul if You can"
And then
We tanned the Yanktonai Heathen
In a Smoking Holocaust
Of blood so rich, and trampled guts
Of whooping and Yelping
Of women and Children
Slit open and raped
Piled high and Raped
Trampled with horses and RAPED and RAPED
Draped over an open fire,
Butchered, Hung up
Castrated, and RAPED
Yes!

There in the dead of winter
Covered in snow
Lay two hundred bodies
That's all that remained
From a great Holocaust"
Where so many Nations were slaughtered
And in our History books lost

                                                                   And we’ll play it all over again
                                    Saturday afternoon at ten
                                                                    When the Indians come to town
                                   We’ll toast um once around
                                                                     First team to fifty wins
                                    So What-a-ya-bet
                                                                     by half time at best
                                    We’ll have them on the run

 

So go figure dear reader, how a nation led by an army made up of the same generals that just fought a civil war, that our history books tell us was to free millions of black slaves, turned around and spent the next decade rounding up, imprisoning, and slaughtering all the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi? I can make no rhyme or reason of it, can you? Please E-mail me at canyonmountain@hotmail.com or sign my questbook.     I mean it!

 

But so it was
With Wounded Knee
That The Nation lay down to rest

Come, let their bones lie sacred now
Let them sore in peace and fly away
Truly, I understand their religion
See, I dance in their sacred hoop
I hear their cry
See, As birds of steal lay claim to the sky
I’ve Painted their Tail Feathers
With pictures of Red Cloud Smoking the Peace Pipe
And Pretty Shield Dancing so Alive
It was a great, great conquest
I have it in my portfolio
And hey, they paid me real well
I have a promissory note
That says so.
HY-yo-Hey; I’ve even carved up a mountain
With Crazy Horse Pointing the Way
        He MUST feel so proud".

Where was the outcry
Where were the martyrs
How could a democracy so fresh in its birth
Look on as a civilization disappeared from the earth
As the Eagle swooped down and devoured its prey
To soar ever higher
And claim the day

..............................

"Well Hell,
If Stanken Injins drank me piss whiskey" ‘
Barked the burly trader Dan,
"I too am a hardened whiskey man,
This "Whiskey Ring" it be flush with silver
I like its feel, I like its lather
An so I travel, An so I bellow
"Whiskey, Whiskey – Nancy Whiskey",
Everywhere I can."

                                                 ............................

"The Allotment act was a Capital idea"
Claimed the congressman to the forum,
"With a brushstroke and a single pen
Each Indian could have a document
Granting him his Land
He could grow wheat, graze cattle
Be proud, be "WHITE", stand tall , go straight
He could be a tribute to his community
Be An honorable "Jake"
A Bill, a Peter
He could go to the bank
He could go to his church
He could go to the beach
He could be
Just like the Caucasian man"

By God
With the yoke in his hand
With the fruit of his labor
With the sweat of his brow
He could make his stand

Whoop and holler
Whoop and holler
Indian trinkets for sale
Whoop and holler
Whoop and holler
Indian blankets made in Taiwan
Anyone got a dollar
Anyone got a dime
Anyone got a tear
Left for this crime

"So what if the land got splintered
Sold up, shot up, pilfered or stolen,
DIA-lake-bottomed, hog tied and Burlington-mined
If the pioneer and his prodigy could prey upon it
It played to the capitalist’s high, high interest,
Don’t you get it?
That’s how we wrote it."

                                                 . . . . . . . . . . .

The sand spirits scattered
To sand – to sand
With Wind Spirits a-dance
In moonlight ashes – ashes that ask
"Who done it"

 

Who done it? "Not I."
Said David of Goliath fame
(The Super-Star Rock Thrower of all time.)
No not David
Who claimed waste to all the land
Who led away the sheep, the asses, the oxen
Who gathered the apparel
Off the bodies he mauled.

You think I’m crazy
You think I’m nuts
You ever read Kings
Verses four through thirteen
You might not want your children to inherit that dream
OK, I’m not sure exactly the chapter or verse
But it’s all written down
Go get out your Bible
Nose around
See if you've got the stomach

For what I found

To Bethlehem a son of this David came
To Amerika was brought his flaming name
With Genocide at heart
His followers swarmed to THE CALL
"United", they named themselves
"One nation – under no law
Invincible, with liberty and land for some
But for others
      Dogs! Dogs!

Can you eat your dogs
Is there anything left on their bones
Or are you going to lie there
And die all alone
Are you going to let me kick you and beat you
And stone you alive
Have you no cultural pride

And Peter fleeing Rome
Saw Jesus coming home
With a crucifix and a crown of thorns
To die once more
There on the streets of Rome to be Reborn

And so Peter
Awakening again
Pulled back the closing gates
Reached out and Accepted his fate
Knelt upside down
The blood of his palms, kissing the ground

Who, who taught us to kill the meek
And slaughter the poor?

................................

"Not I" said Jesus
Blood dripping from his cross
"I came to be martyred, I came to be cursed
                            Show me one stanza, show me one verse
                                            Where I hurt another person, where I bloodied the purse."

Where did I say
"Don’t do as I do
Don’t do as I say
      Just hang your hat upon my name
      To party in eternal pleasure... or suffer an eternal pain"

"That so many of my followers
Turned my words into dirt
Forgot what I said
      "It's easier for a camel..."
Never heard what I taught
      "If you see a man without a shirt, give him yours,
      for how can you get into heaven with a shirt on"
Is why I still hang
From these nails you bought,
Not days, not years, but centuries later
Calling, Calling out to my people
My people, my people, why have you forsaken me.

Must I hang here forever? Will you never be taught?"
Why wait for The Second Coming
When you Desecrate what you've got!

 

.......................

Jesus Man
Can You be left off so easy?
Like the Son of Sam
You heard voices from on high
Spoke One with the Father

While you cast out the wicked
Into an Abyss of Fire
Into Torture forever
For one sin or another

Do You Hear, Do You Feel
Each moment, Each millennium
Each scream of cancer
Each Scream of horror
This eternity of Auschwitz
Created Over and over
When we reach back and remember
Each Witch that was burned was but a Good Mother Staked
When we talk of Crusades and Pogroms
Did they die for your sake
When you claimed to be God
Was this on your veins

My hands Are Your hands God
But with these psalms of mine
Do I seal my fate?

Let us kneel down
Here on this street and pray
That mankind survives yet another day
That an Apocalypse of ice is not fates way
For life on this planet
To implode in shame

God, In a universe so vast
With its 18 billion year old mask
Is this too much for one human to ask?
To kneel and pray
To put my life on this table and say
A sustainable culture
Is it that difficult to create!

.............................

So how did we get from there to here?
Where White Buffalo Woman is left gored
Her Sacred Pipe shattered
And churches built of ice and decked out in gold
Rise from her ashes
And tear out her throat.
Who Who done it
I don’t know
But my ancestors were there
And so were yours.

What can you say

Yet, we inherit their greed
In our wallets each day

How can you deny it
How can you dare
How can you clap your hands and exclaim
"That this land is your land "
While so little is theirs.

There

There a racist state arose
Its riches an inheritance
Stolen
Its savageness bent over the bony carcasses
Of Blackfoot and Crow
Their lands contorted
Their culture engraved in cities and stones

One day too, I swear
We’ll find our bones
Calcified white in the desert sand
Our Los Vegas Hiltons
Our capitals, Our roadways
Skeletonized
Coded like messages in a calcium dusk.
History does repeat itself
Yes
Its waiting out there for us

                  You think I’m crazy
                                You Think I’m Nuts

Well, go ask the ghosts
Of the Mandan Indians
They laughed at what we did to the Sioux
See, There was a day
In the Eighteenth century,
They were the king of the prairie
In the Snake ridden river bottoms
Of central Dakota
There were more of them , then we ever knew
Hundreds of thousands of THE PEOPLE
Up and down the SACRED Missouri
Tanning Hides, planting Corn, cooking Stew
A century later
The Sioux had slaughtered
All but the remaining few

Speaking of those Sacred Few
They died of a gift
Of chicken pox blankets
Custer bequeathed to them in his will

I know these things
I was born in Mandan
On the banks of the Snake River
I played in the Mandan Indian mounds
Every summer, all day long
But I never died of chicken pox
And when I went home to bed
Dad and mom made sure I was safe and warm
And I am thankful, but still, I am torn in two

In our cosmic rays and crystal gaze
We forget how time has been tested true
Look at the Pyramids, look at the Pantheon
Look at the Aztecs, the Incas,
The Conquistadors too.

At Dawn – at dusk
In the primitive moonlight
Of time, of sight
The sand spirits dancing – dancing tonight
Praying Bear – Eagle Claw
And now, Lucy Looks Twice
Dancing – At Dawn – at Dusk
Sand Spirits Laughing,
Off the horizons of life

                                                    .............................

Who – who done it
"Not I" said this nimble tree thinner
Who now gardens the forests
With his Jonsereds 45-E
Chainsaw zipping through trees
Judge, Jury, and Executioner, All one In Three
Buzz away, buzz away, buzz away trees.

"Who were the Kootanai Indians anyhow?
What use had they of these Mammoth forests
Living in long huts and popped up Teepees?
Where are their Chalets,
their Cabins, their Bridges?
Where are their Castles, their Cathedrals, their Ceilings?
What civilization could call itself an existence,
Without leaving behind something,
One Monument of significance

                                            .............................

"Not I" said this young farmer
From southern Dakota
Who laid waste Native sod
For the sight of black soil.
"It was not the Hair of my Mother"

                                            ................................

"Your colonists!"
Spat my friend
The Mexican Indian Hawk
As we sat and talked in the Black Angus
Club where he played
Latin oriented Rock and Roll Jazz
For white man’s pay

I was writing his bio
In a Smoky bar
I remember his words
"What are a few generations
My people were here thousands of years"
To him we were Colonists by thought, Colonists by creed
Born of Colonial blood, Raised on Colonial greed.

                                                .............................

"Not I, Not I, Not I,"
Chorused all the bystanders
            Come everyone, come join the fun
             Come join the carnival see …
Yesterdays Barbers and Teachers and Wives
Today’s webmasters, electronic spies,
Tomorrow’s mothership MCSEs
They come and they
Spit at their money, they dredge out there song
Cry as they slink so drearily along
"Life’s tough enough just to survive,
It’s be fit for the struggle of die."
"See here, if the man next to me, makes more money then I, I have a right to bitch, I have to cry’
        I taught that snitch what it meant to fly, it’s today’s world I live in, today’s standards I Apply

                                            OK, It’s today’s world that will die

"Now now, Yesterday is Yesterday
Today’s today
Forget all this nonsense, quit talking trash
You weren’t there
I’ve got nothing to hide
Get out of my face
Get back in your race
You got work to do, bills to pay, your late for a date, scurry scurry away

But what is it here that we’d have,
Yes, we Merchants and Farmers,
If those Mohawk, those Lakotah
Had not been sent down to slaughter
By our WHITE FATHERS
We Butchers and Bakers and Programmer’s wives?
What would we have to divide?

                                            .............................

" You see this Heineken"
This Mercedes Benz?
They’re quite necessary
To ease the ooze of society
Enveloping my brain."
"My wife, madam sneer, bitches up a tornado
And the black hooded tax man
Mugs me each year."
"The neighbor’s kennels
Explode at sunrise
           God I HATE it!
As cannon shells
Bombard my rode with pot holes.
Life’s not easy."

            The Sand, the Sand, and the dust

"Not I" said the killer of Davie Moore
"Not I, but the wind, the wind I’m sure.
It came like a Whalers punch
A storm of fists
It blew out his defenses
Split open his Brain
Knocked out his lighthouse
Tore through his chest"
I wonder who came and collected their bets

"Not I." Said the poet who scribbled these lines,
The dark of the dawn and the dust have just mated.

---

By Gary Lange ©     Copyright  1999