Oct 10 2007
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, CRAWL BACK IN YOUR HOLE!
Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to
By GARY CORSERI
10/10/07
Christopher Columbus, crawl back in your hole!
Take you Nina, Pinta and Santa Magreedier.
We know what you did in Hispaniola!
We watched silver helmets glint in the sun.
We saw you claim our island for Spain!
Idiot!
Look what you’ve done!
How many millions of lives lost,
How many holocausts
Would burn up the centuries
So you could fill your coffers with gold?
Christopher Columbus—take George Bush with you!
Take them all—Lincoln and Washington
And Jefferson, too.
None of them gave a damn about us.
They said we were savages,
They killed us for sport.
Ever read about Lincoln and the Black Hawk War?
If Lincoln wanted to “free the slaves,”
How come he didn’t give a damn
About their red brothers?
Jefferson pimped for “democracy”
But signed the Removal Act to defraud the Cherokees.
And Washington—“Father” of his country?
Please! You’re killing me! Don’t make me laugh!
Christopher Columbus—Genoa scum!
Take Ferdinand and Isabel—bane of the Jews.
Bane of the Moors, too, who gave Spain a culture.
Not like those crap-bags with their “kill one for Christ!”
(You can leave Jesus behind,
But not him of the Popes, not him of their lackeys.
If you want to leave the sandaled carpenter behind,
We’ve got work for him, work with honor.
We’ve got to undo 500 years of your damned interfering:
We’ll re-plant forests and heal the sky.
We don’t know if we can do it.
You took the last kernel of our hopes and crushed it.
You took our hope away and gave us fear.
You took our hope—but not our courage.
Courage to resist you, even after 500 years.
We’re all under your boots now, your jackhammer boots.
You Nazi, you maniac—take your bloody history
Forward and backward and what have you got?
The Spaniards came and rode us like lamas—literally!
They climbed on our backs and whipped us till we dropped.
The French came looking for pelts.
They took more than they needed so they made
Beaver-fur hats—a Parisian fashion statement!
The Anglos came and never stopped coming.
They slaughtered each other over our land.
They never stopped slaughtering.
They made great speeches about freedom and liberty
While their vampirish mouths ran with our blood.
Christopher Columbus, crawl back in your hole!
Take your economy and your progress and
All the appurtenances of “civilization.”
Take your death culture and your sordid manias.
We’re sick of you and your hypocrisies.
And we’re gathering.
We’re singing the Ghost Song and dancing the Ghost Dance,
Gathering on the hills when you shut your eyes;
Whispering in your dreams
And crying in your nightmares.
And howling as your towers fall,
Your bridges buckle,
Your levees are breached,
Your schools implode,
And your children grasp you with their bloody claws.
Gary Corseri has been fighting the Good Fight since the Vietnam War. He has taught in prisons, public schools and universities. He has published books, had plays produced, and his stories, articles, poems and dramas have appeared at hundreds of venues. He can be contacted at .
So you found Lincoln did a lot of Indian killing, too.
Sure would have been great if Columbus nor anyone else would have ever showed up..but that would be a divergent time line…There are Native prophecies of the coming of the white folk..and some of them say he will treat the Native peoples rather badly…which he did…not an indictment of all white folk…
But I am charging you all rent!!!!
Don’t know who does or doesn’t believe there is a God..or studies prophecy…prophey in it’s self concluded there is a construction to time…as the Hopi prophecies state this land will pretty much be burnt to a crisp by man made fire…and A Cherokee prophecy states towards the end just before the Prophet returns there will be a great war in this land..worldwide…but the Native peoples are to take to the hilly ground..and not join in the war…there they will be joined by those of other races who woke up..and considered something really stinks about all this…and they won’t join in the war…
And at some given time the prophet will return…With the Prophet stating he will come from east to west like a great light or lightning like…just as Jesus spoke in his teachings…
It was the “Indians” time to go; Columbus was merely the agent of change. Change is never easy! And: what previous ancient culture did the so-called “Native Americans” destroy - the “Original Americans” that were genocided into oblivion, lost to history, lost to memory? Down through the centuries, one race replaces another. That’s the way it goes! We do not return to the past; we move on into the future; the next race of “mankind” awaits its’ time of cleansing and renewal.
Your words are so overwhelming and powerful as I read them that my breath is taken away. What a poem and what an overview of the imperialistic nation- grabbing that has taken place. I don’t think of it as cleansing and renewal but as the exact opposite.
It’s so easy and in fashion to blame Europeans for pretty much everything nowadays, so I’m not surprised to see another diatribe against Columbus and the “evil” White men who came, saw, and conquered North and South America.
I also find it amusing that many self-righteous writers still portray the Jews of Europe throughout the centuries as mere victims. How ridiculous.
I may feel, and sometimes wish, that Columbus would have taken one look at the inhabitants of Hispaniola, turned his boats around and went back to Europe claiming that nothing exists “over there”, but hindsight is 20/20.
But lumping all White folks together with the Imperialists who savaged the Indian tribes is wrong. Absolving the Jews from any of history’s debacles is also disingenuous.
Shadow Dancer–I have enjoyed your work here and there on the Web. Frankly, I think you have every right to charge us rent.
Richard–Who are you, or we, or anyone, to determine when it is someone’s “time to go”? I think your history is somewhat foggy. The “Native Americans” didn’t destroy the “Original Americans.” There were many tribes, many migrations across the land bridge from Siberia. Some of those tribes would evolve into civilizations like the Toltecs, Olmecs, Inca, Maya, Aztec, etc. Others evolved from them or other ancestral roots into Navaho, Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, Arapaho, Commanche, Apache, etc. There was no “genocide” of “original people” by “native people.” Frankly, your idea of “cleansing and renewal” is Crusader mentality and more than a little alarming.
Mary UK–Thanks for your kind words. Would that all lit critics understood the importance of a little positive reinforcement!
Nikon–I don’t think it’s “so easy and in fashion to blame Europeans for pretty much everything nowadays.” I don’t think I’ve made a blanket indictment against Europeans. Am I criticizing Michaelangelo? Van Gogh? Spinoza? Voltaire? Hesse? Rilke? Dostoyevsky? No, I’m against that Crusader mentality that vanquished and devastated the Americas (not to mention Africa and much of Asia). I don’t see where my work has “absolved” Jews from any of history’s debacles, nor have I cited them as “mere victims.” Are you sure you are reading the poem I wrote?
Mr. Corseri:
Does American history begin with the “Native Americans” who crossed the land bridge or did native or previous migratory cultures exist before the advent of the “American Indian?” Are we to assume there was no one here before the “immigrants” came? The “Original Americans” may have disappeared into the mists of time before the dawn of recorded history for whatever reason. One of those reasons may have been genocide.
Did Native Americans not war against other tribes or commit genocide? Were they so much nobler than any other race? History is “foggy” concerning Atlantis and Lemuria. Many tribes and cultures could have come and gone in a distant era that are now lost to memory.
You blame Columbus for all the ills of Western Civilization and then imply that the recent deaths of 9/11, the Mpls. bridge, Katrina are pay back for Columbus’ bad karma and that our children’s inheritance is “bloody claws.”
In the here and now, death and genocide are a worldwide occurrence. Your poem does focus on an American “civilization” that was ordained by blood and the Columbus Day celebration that no one really celebrates anymore. You mention that Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington also have blood on their hands. Do you ever go beyond your anti-American (anti-capitalist?) rant and include Mugabe, Castro, Stalin, Mao? In the future: Chavez? Why call Columbus a (National Socialist) Nazi? He was an Italian, sailing for Spain; the term fascist would have made more sense except that neither doctrine (as such) existed in 1492.
Why do people with modern “enlightened” sensibilities go back 500 years and apply those sensibilities to an older age. They had a different view of life in the past. Life was hard then and based on survival. In 500 years, history will view us as unenlightened “neanderthals” and wonder how we could have thought and acted the way we did! We are not so enlightened; we like to think we are, but we are not!
p.s.
I do not make the decisions as to who comes and goes on the world’s stage. That is - obviously! - in the hands of time, the gods, fate, the great spirit, etc.
“Cleansing and renewal” have nothing to do with me or any “Crusader mentality!” Once again: time, the gods, fate, the great spirit, the big kahuna…
Were richard to hit a man in the head and take his belongings, richard would not be to blame. It was surely an act of fate, god, time, the great spirit….
These things happen, it was the age, it was the norm, it was to be expected. Surely the Indians had to have massacred someone too? No way they were innocently living here first. So they had it coming!
Those poor Atlanteans and Lemurians never saw it coming, trading their land for some(ok, i’ll stop here. I think you get the point. Richard is totally ridiculous.)
Powerful poem. Should these fools choose to burn their own houses down over a disagreement, I hope they’ll have enough room up in them hills for me. Two strong hands, I can till the land. Though, I admit I pray it won’t come to that.
Mr. Corseri and “Wooly Bully” twist my words into something I don’t even recognize in order to validate their preconceived notions of history!
Indians good; Columbus evil. I get it! It’s so simple. The Indians lived in absolute peace and harmony and then one day Columbus, the big bad wolf, showed up and blew their teepees down. And we’ve all lived unhappily ever since.
Actually, I’m being a bit of a devil’s advocate here, but the Columbus rant is old news! How does this help us now? No one celebrates Columbus Day anymore and we do not seem to learn from history. Why not concentrate on living in the here and now?
And all those thousands of years before the migration over the land bridge, do we really know that no one came before?