poem: The Preacher's Four Horsemen

"a Bible in one hand and a machine gun in another"

I.

How long did you stand on the shoulders

of politically inflated pygmies,

whose towering ominous frames

cast shadows the size and shape of terror

across omitted landscapes-

reverse illumination, by backlight:

revealing an obsession

with human toys and playthings;

 

borrowing pages of notes, maybe

inspiration in the cordillera of the South;

Pinochet's triumphant manufactured crisis,

the bought stamped and sealed

infallible immortality

of your buddy Falwell, in the North?

which of you first said, "A real Christian

has the Bible in One Hand, and

a machine gun,

in the other?"

 

II.

It takes a masterful sleight of hand

to divert an entire world's attention,

a skilled magician to hide headless bodies

in ditches, and charred corpses in pews

in plain sight of the audience;

an ego the size of hubris

to tell the listeners: that

 

 

you are God’s appointed slayer

of your Newly Revised Four Horsemen

with slammed closed fists on the Bible,

proclaiming: the Apocalypse has to be avoided;

you are mustering the command to save a nation

from itself!

 

from its own ideals, from land reform;

from the dreams of half its people,

from that ever-elusive guerilla-

but moreover, from your rewritten

harbingers of Biblical wrath:

Hunger! Misery! Ignorance! Subversion!

 

 

III.

and in a hemisphere renowned for irony,

you were even discernible in the crowd-

thinking your followers too ignorant

to notice what your left hand

was stealing while your right one tightened

into a fist as vast as an old woman's nightmare.

 

 

Abrams' steeds suited that purpose,

taking what was offered in back rooms

and secret deals, brand new iron saddles

sallied forth,

knights errant in shining bureaucracy;

a fury spread in all directions- but north

and west more than some of the others.

The Horsemen themselves became

your guiding Muse.

 

 

IV.

Hunger: you learned your Russian history,

it seems. Scorched earth is a great tool

for ensuring the hungry look to you

with hands out- just be sure to regulate

after burning how many calories each mouth

should consume- balance your workforce,

then, on counting food rations, daily

to find who has your enemy.

 

 

V.

Misery: of course, people who are

learned, are miserable- so what better

solution than making the intelligentsia

vanish into the night? Like a magic trick

you converted “disappear”

into both a passive and direct action verb-

your artists, engineers, and philosophers;

your Truthseekers-

being just the first to abscond across thin borders

and into volcanic maws.

 

 

VI.

Ignorance: it is agreed, best slain

by the burning of schools, the exsanguination

of education, then of anyone

who arrives unpaid to do the job. Two generations

treated thus

set the course beautifully

for completion of a disenfranchised

solitary vision of self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

 

VII.

Subversion: seldom this century

has Christian bullying

been taken further

as you cleverly made them all believe

they are the unworthy,

their fate cannot rest in their own hands,

but in God’s preordained destiny-

remarkably convenient how well

His Destiny matched your own

prejudice.

 

 

VIII.

and then it rained fire and brimstone,

or at least Napalm and Agent Orange-

wonder where you got that-

indeed, Reagan’s admiration had nothing to do

with the 3000 a month

who ceased breathing, under your watch?

 

 

Male domination

went up in popularity ratings

as you discovered

how many creative ways there can be

to rape an entire culture's splayed and beautiful form

when she is drugged and down.

 

 

 

IX.

I saw your living ghost in London’s news

it walked there from your highlands,

in passive indifference

slaughtering sheep and razing schools;

jumped an ocean

burning ground across Libya and Syria and Somalia,

right on up through Bosnia

hitting Spain on its way to land in Woolrich’s

daylit streets; we enabled it when we claimed

war is too messy a thing

to apportion blame and responsibility.

 

 

X.

80 years was too much, apparently

a few phone calls maybe;

your successful appeal living proof, of course

your God has absolved you of all payment.

You are a soul cleansed of sins

in the fertilizer choked Motagua:

what strings are wrapped around your hands,

and who are the puppets you bought

on your country's account?

 

 

it is not the bodies but the spirits

who will find you in the nearing end,

the will to live the thrum in the air

that marimba will play time

and the machetes will fall

because you did not think their dissolution

was any of your business after all-

 

 

 

and we are the world we stopped listening

when we heard who it was

on our own radios;

we leave retribution to the angry ghosts

who walk in the places with funny names

we would rather pretend

never existed in the same world

as color television.

 

 

Author's Note

"President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. ... I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice." - Ronald Reagan

inspired partly by a contest on bullying; I thought, what happens when a head of state bullies an entire nation? When religious zealotry takes the reins of control?

Reviews

[Through the Gateway]

A very heartfelt and incendiary piece, Maria. As well it should be. What little I've read of Pinochet myself, I sincerely hope that the Universe punishes him by making him relive every life lost or ruined by his deeds.

On the subject of the style: this is a bit different for you. It seems as though you were channeling Bradbury, the way your words flowed and the style in which they fell. The actual formatting is a tad difficult to follow at first, so you might touch up on that. However, I felt that this was a great overall piece.

Please continue to experiment. You will be surprised at your own ingenuity.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks for the review and for the tips, Lonestar. Just one correction- Pinochet was Chilean and died a few years ago. This was actually aboout Rios Montt, the Guatemalan. Pinochet's deeds were from 76 onward, Montt started in 82. There are few changes I do want to make here, most notably copying this back into Word, since the WC format does not like to switch from Word copied material to its own format, leaving this a little sloppy looking for my edits and rewritten sections. What would you suggest changing about the format?

[Marie Anzalone]

Maria? Did you really call me Maria??
I did go through and do some editing out of redundancies, some reformatting. I really appreciate you taking the time to review. This one seems to be scaring folks away.

[Eileenws]

A very well thought political poem. Congratulations on winning the contest.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Eileen, for taking the time to read and review this. Not an easy subject, for sure. Much appreciated.

[Jen]

.

[Tree]

An ambitious and challenging poem, Marie. Powerful, the way you use the irony of history and current events, all crashing and slamming onto the screen in front of us. I like the question this raises and the tone in which the poet asked them, for this might of been the first poem I've ever read of yours where the poet uses an exclamation point, let alone 4 ––– consecutively. It goes back to that person who rarely raises their voice or hardly ever curses, but when the do? they demand your immediate attention.

In your notes, you ask ''inspired partly by a contest on bullying; I thought, what happens when a head of state bullies an entire nation? When religious zealotry takes the reins of control?''

What about an entire geographical hemisphere? here I got to thinking of the middle east, where religious zealotry and nation are almost always one, and how that philosophy (power) has slipped negatively into other nations... Or, take it back further, The Crusades (another misguided state-sponsored zealotry action) which, to this day many a radical Islamist still cite as part of there reasoning for jihad...

Not a big fan of nations that do not separate church and state, or at least keep them far enough apart as to not overly influence policy.

Again, this poem was not only emotionally charged, but also a crash course in the who, why, and how of the last 80 years of dictatorship, totalitarianism, and religious zealotry. I'll be coming back to this later, from a different angle. Very ambitious piece, M

[Marie Anzalone]

I think about your words, Diego, and I think about the role of poets and artists in all of this. We more often stand watch and bear witness than we document- we respond to the facts, leave the reporting of them to others. or do we? I wonder sometimes how we use forums like this. neruda was recently exhumed- his driver apparently reaffirmed suspicions that he had been murdered for political reasons, not died of the broken heart days after the coup in Chile as his cohorts [Espada has brilliant words about their incarceration and torture] always believed. I have not heard if the exhumation showed anything or not. I know we like to be modern romantics or modern cynics on this site, but I see so little good analysis of the world around us. I am always enthralled to take on a debate with the ones commenting on world affairs- not telling us how we should feel, but showing the actual feeling. Putting us there. Defying revisionist history. there are 3 on this page who commented who are willing to go there. I appreciate you all.

Lynch mob justice is popular in the highlands here where I live-especially for thieves and rapists. It is an extension of decades of frustration over a woefully inadequate justice system for half of the population. Sometimes they capture the person and hand them over to the police. Usually they set him on fire or tear him to pieces. Yesterday, Iran announced they would hold to stonings as a viable form of execution for moral offenses, offenses against religion. It is not that far a stretch form one to the other. I have seen zealots online in the US, calling for the torture and mutilation of criminals; and then extending that to every woman who has ever had an abortion, every man who has ever been unfaithful to his partnaer, every immigrant who does not speak English perfectly, every mother who struggles on welfare to raise a child she was not prepared to have. Often, in the name of Jesus.

This piece was written about the acquittal of Montt. It just happened weeks ago. He was the first elader to be tried in his nation's own courts for genocide and crimes and crimes against humanity. The bitterness and division is a palpable thing. 30 years later, and there is still no clear answer, no agreement. Civil wars have a tendency to end in accords that never reach the heart of the people. To me, it is all about what is tolerated in public, by the population. Once a group can safely put hate speech about another in the media, fuses are already being lit. I see it in the US- against women, minorities, the poor- to me, the Tea Party is thinly veiled fascism at best. Here, in Guatemala's history, in Chile's history, in much of the Middle East's current events- one can see the logical outcome of that. The 80 years was a reference to Montt's sentence, which was overturned on technicalities. I say, "but of course it was." But you are right- it could also be a history of the struggle to free ourselves from indoctrination of many kinds over the past 8 decades.

I appreciate your willingness to delve into this. I appreciate you.

[Cool Handless Luke]

I can definitely see where you are influenced by pablo neruda and the artistry of history and politics in your style and form. You know me, I am usually a more personal, intimate level poet and don't write much about this sort of thing. Besides you kick my a*s in this genre and I would feel like Dr. Seuss trying ! Wait, who's Maria? lol

[Marie Anzalone]

LOL no competition, Luke, no competition! not many poets want to take on this genre, and, if the number of views/ reviews is any testament, even fewer want to read it. I applaud your commitment to our literary friendship for making it through this one. I may have studied Neruda's style, but he was better on a bad day than I will aspire to at my best. Still, I take the comparison of my work to the Master's as a compliment of praise most exalted and high. I thank you for that.

We should all step out of comfort zones. I dare you to write a love poem with the same intensity as your other work. You will have 1/2 the female WC population and maybe even some of the male, swooning at your feet.

LOL Maria is a mutual friend, and suffice it by saying it is a long story.

Happy dreaming , wakeful meaning, to you.

[Marie Anzalone]

PS Dr. Seuss was genius in his own way. You might like it.

[Marie Anzalone]

doubt it I know the reviewer's state of mind at the time it was written

[Ken Simm.]

I'm struck by how small the world has become. I'm struck by how the one on the pale horse rides everywhere. How his brothers combine to make his life easier. This is about Rios Montt but it could be any dictator with genocidal tendancies.
It could be and is about any dark hearted idiot supported by secrets. A point I would like to make. It may be a matter of semantics but I think a leader who bullies does not deserve the term leader. The person in charge maybe, but you usually find with these scum that the buck hovers occasionally over their heads before being adroitly passed away, (No pun intended) Leader therefore is a misnomer. (Sorry that was not about your poem).
You are the master of political art. I am reminded of Pablo Neruda. You show that there is positive power in art. And this is art.

[Ken Simm.]

And religious zealotry is just another way of saying it was His fault not mine. The excuse of every mass murderer since time began.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you for another thoughtfully written review, Ken. I find that political writing is very difficult to get right- it typically either comes across as sycophantic or demonizing or propaganda; and often has to rely on literals that make it tough to do artistically enough to call it poetry and not just a rant. In truth, I do rely a lot on Neruda and Espada and Allende to "show me how it is done."I thought the subject here was important enough to tackle, so I tried it. The anger and division here over this is almost palpable. I have one friend who fled briefly when intelligentsia started disappearing, another who was a guerilla, and another who was born the year this happened. All 3 have wildly disparate viewpoints. I stuck [mostly] to the truth commission reports for this. And you are absolutely correct- when you read those reports, it really is "second verse, same as the first" in comparisons across nations. I will just say that, for some reason, genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas has had a tendency to be particularly sadistic and dehumanizing in the way it is carried out- not sure why. I think it is because of the underlying religious motivation, but I have nothing substantial to base that on.

I did change the author's note from "leader" to "head of state after considering your words." Thank you.

I do not know about you, but it seems we have reached a worldwide tipping point or cusp of sorts. Things to me seem equally balanced to go one way or the other- secular or radical, with little in-between. Seems long-term human survival may rest on the abilty for there to be room for both. I hope we are up to the challenge.

[Marie Anzalone]

just a clarification- I meant to say, room for both secualr thought and spirituality, not room for zealotry. we can, in my opinion, no longer afford religious zealotry.