Neal Shannacappo | + Follow Poet |
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From Seven Shattered Corpses

I was adopted . . . 
one morning in the mists of yesteryear
when the sun glimpsed over the pallid shone house 
next to the abode of my mother and my father 
on came a harbinger of desolation. . . 
I died that day though I knew it not, 
nor was I to understand, 
comprehend 
this death for many winters past and fallen to the way side. 

I was five summers new, 
five winters older . . .

I was born Patrick  . . . 
I was to have my name usurped 
by those wretched things called Free and land 
and this is all I have to say about them . . . 

Therein lies the beginnings of my cursed life as it was to become, 
and thereto 
you have the birth of my coined out naming of Mishiimin (apple). 
I was raised by whites, 
in a white town, 
had white friends, white schooling, 
white church propaganda indoctrination, 
and there under the unseen 
but felt 
fist of white society 
was I to be remade into . . 
apple. 

My dreams were white, 
my legends white, 
my desires always for white, 
my voice spoke and bled white, 
my body was red, 
my face red, 
my hair red, 
my past long forgotten, 
lost, 
ripped, 
shredded, 
. . .
torn from my heart, 
my mind, 
and thus eviscerated from my soul was red 
and long thereafter 
did this one Miskó Ki'zis (Red Sun) bleed and bleed 
until 
this screaming throat was heard no more, 
nay 
not even from my own lips,
my own ears 
my screaming was silent. . . 
And gone one morning did the red from my people slip away,
slip away till all was vanished leaving all this shell behind. . . 
one barely breathed two legged apple. 

So it was in hell,
I found my shattered soul,
splintered mind and ravaged heart 
and there in the bells tolling of sorrows raked across all there I did see, found I,
of all things,
in hell, 
that abyssal helix of despair dredged was . . . 
this one sighted a glimmering whisper of hope . . . 

It was in hell I learned to breathe, 
it was in hell I learned to live,
it was in hell that I was remade into all that I am now, 
will be, 
ever aspire. . . 
and never once did I dream. . . 

In the city of desolation 

I became one 
all over once more as I was born to be 
many empty nights of winter past; 
from seven shattered corpses 
I found 
my way back into the whole of one . . .

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