poem fragment from 1998

there is no shame in speaking truth
when words unadorned serve their purpose here
for some allegories are just not cute
applied as they are to my greatest fear--

am i still significant?
Do you (can you?)
(still)
love me?

Untitled

I wrote--and lost-- this poem some time after 9/11. Likely a few weeks or so. I really do not know how it turned up on a Turkish website. Bless them, they at least acknowledged that I was the author: my name at the bottom of the page with the ubiquitous (c).

Untitled

Yes you had it coming.
You had something coming.
You connived with Spain
And the fools who sold
My country up the river
So you could play
The colony game
With our minds
With our hearts
With our money

For years we looked up to you
(big white brother)
And you abetted the myth.
You helped set up and keep
A tyrant in power as long as he
Too, would sell his country
Up the mighty Mississippi
And you didn't just stick it to us--
You stuck it to everyone else.
(now "everyone else" owes you more
money than he can ever pay)

Well. Something came.
Something came and it took away
Countless people who had no cause
To know me, hurt me or my country.
Something came and it punished--
no, maimed and killed--
The wrong people.
I am no friend of Uncle Sam.
But you won't find me celebrating
Because some bastard shot
Lady Liberty in the knee.

You had something coming all right.
But not this. God, not this.