Hugo Chavez Poem by Michael David Morrissey

(On his address to the UN, Sept.20,2006.)

Your words bring solace to a damaged nation
not yours, but mine, a limping giant
wounded in its soul by its very leaders,
the men you call imperialists and devils, assassins, torturers.
We know this too. But we need to hear it from you
because we know you are our friend.
You call us brothers, and we believe you.
You remind us of the well-documented crimes of the CIA
against your country and many others, including our own.
You know Bushco, the devil, was behind 9/11
and all that has followed, and you aren't afraid to say so.
Chomsky doesn't go that far, but David Griffin does
and he agrees with you about the devil.
So do we. We the people
sinking into fascism like the Germans yesterday,
having learned nothing at all from history,
struck deaf, dumb and blind not by 9/11
but by television and the New York Times
who sold out to the devil years ago.
Now you come, Hugo Chavez, saying what the Times
will not print, but our hearts burn to say
before the UN General Assembly.
How can we thank you but in small ways, like this
in the hope that someday small voices will rise into a chorus
as they have in your country, and in Bolivia
and we one day will have real elections again
and elect people like you who will tell the truth
and do what we want them to do
instead of what they want, which is to enslave us,
kill us, impoverish and exploit us, and worst of all,
do all of this without us knowing, thinking we are free,
the 'greatest country in the world.'
Has there ever been a more pitiable state in all of history?
'And they thought they were free! '
will be our epitaph, signed by the Vice-President of Sneers,
unless we rise, hermano, and smile your smile of brotherhood
and justice. Te saludo, Hugo, amigo americano.

(Sept.,2006)