Apology

my apologies to the people of Vietnam
I was told that ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’
was in jeopardy. I didn’t know at the time
that ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’
could be relative terms and conditions
my ignorance and weakened youthful state
allowed my being drafted into ‘the killing fields’
Asian faces of families and babies
on sleepless nights still gather in my mind
my protest too late as the light of Truth evinced

my apologies to the Iraq people
I was told that you had the means
to destroy the world and now
I’m being told your holding hands with
the Afghanistan’s Taliban ready to destroy
‘Our world’ and you are in ’cahoots’ with
the Palestinians ready to destroy ‘the promise land’
sorry for imposing ‘our world’ of ‘right’
and the morals of our chosen religion

sorry to the children lost to ‘Katrina’
and how we sat and watched and watched
as the television made the real, surreal
and that we didn’t come to your rescue
maybe the different color skin faces holding
those signs of ‘Help‘ atop your rooftops
made it seem you were in a different land
and now you Haitian people whose livelihoods
we and WTO politically destroyed because you wouldn’t
accept our ‘democracy’ our ‘oligarchic capitalism’
and now Mother Nature has finished the job
shaking your homes into the ground
fortuitously our new leader and his wife
has recognized this history and have
tried to make this right

sorry Nashville but your on your own to try
and salvage your music, your instruments, your history
as we asked the same of New Orleans
for our human resources have been depleted
all our volunteers are busy trying to wash
the oil off our feathered friends
and doing CPR on the sea faring inhabitants
direly consuming that ‘black gold’ released in the Gulf
while our government holds hands with oil wealthy friends
and our politicians chant the anthem ‘…drill baby drill’