Best Native Americans Poems
White world and white words
Old in heart but yet peaceful
Symbol of greatness.
Wolf’s Song
I have the Great Wolf’s spirit
Flowing through my veins.
I can feel how my tribe suffered
When I gaze at their remains.
For all that’s left has turned to dust,
No longer do they cry.
They remain a haunting memory
Where soaring eagles fly.
Once a mighty nation
With pride and love to share
That white men turned to ashes
With no sympathy or care.
In my heart still lives the pain
But I must let it go…
For it hurts me more to carry it
Than white men will ever know.
I still love looking at our land
Though taken from our use.
I feel the pride that dwells inside
As still we suffer from abuse.
© 11-21-18
TRIBUTE TO NATIVE CULTURE Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
*Dedicated to our Native American brothers and sisters on reservations
Happy Thanksgiving to all American Poets
Long before the ships arrived
Bringing European man,
America’s native people
Dwelt here and loved this land.
Great Spirit was the name they had
For the God that nurtured them,
They asked his blessings invoked his name
And sent their dead to him.
They organized in time of need
To give them strength of numbers,
Co-operation between the tribes
Often numbered in the hundreds.
The concept of nations was known to them
And today you can see it still,
As the bundle of arrows in the Eagle’s claw
On our country's dollar bills.
Their numbers greatly were reduced
By foreign plagues they couldn’t fight.
Then they got a bitter taste
Of the white man’s technical might.
Tribes died in droves as they fiercely strove
To hold on to their land,
But courage and pride could not decide
The battle for the doomed red man.
Exile or slaughter was their only choice
In this unequal test of wills,
Lush river camp and forest home
Became rocky barren hills.
Today they languish on reservations
Where life is often bleak,
But some do not accept despair
Their pride they vow to keep.
From a tortured past they have emerged,
And are proud to teach their young
Who they are and what it’s like
To speak their native tongue.
They haven’t lost all their history
Enough survives today
To see themselves as a people again,
And put their culture on display.
A nation healing and on the ascent
With reason to be proud,
As they don their dancing finery
And show it to the crowd
Then you should see them dance !
My stars it’s quite a sight,
When they start to whoop and holler
Your hair stands up in fright.
Yes the tribes are back and I am glad
We didn’t wipe them out,
These original Americans
Still have much to be proud about.
RITUAL
The anthropology professor
said Iroquois ways were a fading reflection,
a cultural trace of a poetic narrative of indigenous
wisdom, tribal traditions that marry the spirit of
a primitive people to enduring kinship with the
earth and the sky
The anthropology professor called the delicate
touch the definitive expression of intimate knowledge,
giving meaning and myth to mystical caprice in the
cardinal winds, to sustaining abundance in the deep gray
lakes of a primeval forest beneath the cyclical rhythms
of a lunar calendar that is daily affirmed
by the rising sun
The anthropology professor said the bloated
ambitions of mercantile man, the rapacious imperatives
of voracious desire, the arrogant corrective technology
of guilt which acknowledges nature as interchangeable
scenery for the story of our lives, should become like the
methods and modes of harmony, that the way of
Six Nations be the simple foundation for symbiotic
behavior in the millennium to come
And the anthropology student was twenty
and tough, a perpetual hunter, a perennial warrior,
attuned to the season of bounty and challenge, alert to
nuance of movement and sound, knew the intricate ways
of the Haudenosaunee and the signature rites that
prepared them for war
To honor the creator
he came through the mists of a cold spring morning
like wind in the trees without source or destination,
embodied the essence of some terrible presence –
an unexplained whisper in an isolated place, the feather of
a wing beyond peripheral vision, perhaps the shadow of
a serpent beyond the edge of the nerves, something too
close, something suddenly striking in the ghostly
memories of ritual violence of “the danse lacrosse”,
“dehuntshigawa’es”, baaga’adowe, a game called
begadwe, little brother of war!
Native Americans, Truth In The Telling
NOT FOR CONTEST
Savage was their race, deep cuts in their blows
Brave with no disgrace, as history shows
Hunters strong, wandering in wooded glen
Where they belong, valiant tales of men
Swift as deer, primeval in their wild ways
Rarely prone to cheer, hard were their dark days
Soldiers of note, fierce in every brave fight
If truth be wrote, they lived a life more right
Serene in their love, wards of Nature's lands
Worship spirits above, scattered in bands
True to a fault, with honor never bought
When Time cried its halt, great Spirits they sought
Savage was his race, deep cuts in their blows
Fighters with no disgrace, history shows
Hunters strong, wandering in wooded glen
Where they belong, valiant tales of men
Robert J. Lindley, 3-08-2017
Syllables Per Line: 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10
Total # Syllables: 120
Total # Words: 94
Note: Dedicated to my Native American grandfather, (Julius Parks).
My mother's father that she never uttered a single criticism of...
An honorable man, fierce, brave and noble. He died in 1964
after living his life far from the ways of his childhood and parental teachings.
Under the rule of white men and their white laws. I saw regret in his eyes, but never surrender! I saw love in his heart but never hate!
I have failed him miserably in my white skin and its too often deceptive ways of living..
Yet we each walk our own path for better or for worse.
I do not surrender to that which attempts to destroy me now.
Take me to the hill
from which the rainbow rises
to pay ancestors’ tribute.
Share the memories
handed down by mighty chiefs,
warriors who loved the land.
Harmony once reigned
between their tribes and nature
until white men invaded.
Interstates now run
through our backyards -- urban sprawl.
Endangered is our future.
*Entry for Chris's contest, but originally written for Rick's "Ancient Songs" contest.
When I was young I couldn’t wait to go outside and play
when school was not in session on Christopher Columbus Day.
We were taught all the stories…how he sailed the ocean blue
with the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria…in 1492.
We were taught he was a great explorer, across the oceans his boats swirled.
We were taught this Italian man who sailed for Spain discovered our new world.
He’s such a navigation hero our history books proclaim
that cities across this nation are christened in his name.
He’s been given the ultimate accolade…banks are closed and children play
as we commemorate Christopher Columbus with his very own holiday...
But then a strange thing happened, we found the history books were skewed
and we weren’t ready for the things we read or the feelings that ensued.
It seems this new world theory comes with a little hitch
Columbus wasn’t looking for America he just wanted to get rich.
He thought he’d sail to Asia when he left Spain that fateful day
but he was wrong about the route and America got in the way.
It was in the Caribbean not America where Columbus made landfall.
The fact is…he never landed on or visited America at all.
About his claim of discovering a new world…it’s a very misleading stat
I think the Native Americans might have something to say about that.
Because if I’m not mistaken they were here many years before
Christopher Columbus accidentally bumped into their shore.
And would a man who we’ve been taught was courageous, great and brave
kill the people who were already here or turn them into slaves?
Would we still look at Columbus Day with as much innocence and pride
If we knew how he decimated a people and committed genocide?
No, I think it’s time we stop giving Columbus so much dignity and glory
and teach our children while they’re in school…both sides of the story.
Perhaps then all of America will commemorate and cheer
those who really discovered our country…
you know, the ones who were already here.
So the next generation of children will be excited to go outside and play
when their school is not in session on Indigenous People’s Day.
I
All sorts of fears
A place of tears
And all these years
I thought these letters
Strung together for a collector?
No, far from such
C O I M E T R O PH O B I A
Intimated I feared losing
Coins at the cemetery
But oops, nothing to do with coins!
II
Then capital, names, of nations can
And do raise the odd question
Does Turkey have to do with FOWL?
For "turkey," tradition thanks Native Americans
With apologies a good country
Might - o capital - sound hell- ish, I'm sorry
I don't understand H E L S I N K I
But "hell" better deal FIRE than WATER
May Finland never taste an iota of sink!
Meanwhile tourists have made me think
About BANGKOK (some business stink!)
Back in the USA, I did learn to connect
The dots for INDIANAPOLIS & Connecticut
In Africa's south, a harbour (yes, there's contraband)
Rhymes with urban, not pronounced DUR - BAN
But yes, I do pray we do begin to ban
Alcohol sales on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays
Prayer or pipedream for old fashioned ways?
Hunger led you through
the Bering Straits
to discover new possibilities
in the foreign, distant land.
You were hunters, brave and great,
chasing animals for your survival,
walking thousands of miles –
hunting to sustain existence.
Your other brothers,
set sail in their catamarans
from Polynesian Islands
through the ocean expanses.
Roaring winds, mass of water,
walls of treacherous waves,
sinking many of your boats -
huge billows of water were falling
to the abyss, on your ships.
The bravest of you,
came to the new shores
of imaginary, fantastic worlds.
Then, thousands of years later
came hostile brothers to the lands of yours.
They put claim on your dominion
and they diminished many Native Nations.
Ancient ways of life
those of yours, distinct culture,
which they wrongly understood,
putting their seal of polluted world.
Brothers forgive your intruders
for the Holocaust they have caused you.
Another land of Canaan taken forever
and they wanted you to perish
like the great Nation of Phoenicians.
Fortunately you had good prophets:
Dekanawida and others.
You did not listen to Jezebel
and Great Spirit, Manitu led you
to the Holy Spirit and true God.
We stand in front of you,
all Native Tribes –
humble, with heads bend.
Our president, who received Nobel Peace Prize,
had the time to reconcile
the atrocities committed on your people,
by the hostile men,
who had to corrupt their own religion
of one Church of Christ
to justify their terrible deeds!
I have a shark's tooth
Found under the soil not so deep
In my Kansas yard.
I hide it from others so they will not ruin
My illusions about it.
I feel it is from a fierce and mighty shark
Who devoured little fish, and even maybe a human leg.
I picture it as being from prehistoric times.
I hide it especially well when the archeologists come visit
We have a creek in the backyard where they have had a dig
Discovering hundreds of arrowheads
And maybe an axe handle, but not the one I am hiding with
My shark's tooth. For I do not want anyone to ruin my
Axe handle illusions either.
As a boy he read a lot of their stories.
At eleven he started to write two prose books
about them and he taught himself to swim their way.
At seventeen he walked alone for ten days
through the forests of Holy Cross Mountains
to bond himself with nature.
God saved him many times in his journeys.
After High School he studied theology
for two years in monastery to solve
metaphysical quests about existence,
then he immigrated to Native Americans’ land,
thinking he will meet them, but alas
their physical World was shattered.
Spiritually you are mighty people
of almighty God, creator of all,
who will recompense you for all suffering.
I know this apostle, he is acquainted with our God –
metaphysical poet he is.
There are many of us who say we had nothing to do with the theft of land out from under the Natives who were here before us…that we didn’t break any promises, we didn’t lie or steal or kill in a massive land-takeover bid….
There are many of us who say we feel no shame, we take no responsibility for those actions…that was something our ancestors did.
There are many of us who say we’ve never enslaved another person…we’ve never mistreated, abused or caused another person woe…
There are many of us who say we feel no shame, we take no responsibility…that was our ancestors…and that was a long, long time ago.
But there are some of us who still see the impact of our ancestors…who see the destruction and devastation that has lingered long after the flood…
who know as long as there is still one person feeling their effects…
there will be a heaviness in our heart
and shame running through our blood.
The more we walk in unspoiled nature…the more we hear her sounds and see her sights…the more and more we realize the Native American’s had it right…
On our walk the other day…once again we were in awe…
let me share with you to some of the sights and sounds…some of the wonders that we heard and saw.
We heard many different birds singing…with various musical abilities
We heard the sound of water meeting the land and the wind whispering to the trees.
We saw the delicate intricacies of the spiders and the webs they all had spun.
We saw the beauty of the lake as its water glimmered in the sun.
We saw the bright yellows of the smooth beggarticks that all around us grew…the purples of the climbing asters and mist flowers painted blue
We saw the vibrant colors of the butterflies…Yellow, pink and white…
and herons everywhere we looked…in colors blue and white.
We saw alligators lurking in the marsh…moss filled trees alive and dead…we saw moorhens swimming with the alligators with eagles flying overhead.
So you can see how, with every walk we take in nature…the more we hear her sounds and see her sights…the more and more convinced we are…the Native American’s had it right…
It’s also way we try to walk in the footprints of their ancestors as often as we can…
so we can feel the same wonders they felt
walking in spaces
that have not been rearranged by man.
Brothers and sisters embrace
true Church of Resurrected Christ.
There are many churches, but only
the one established by Resurrected Christ is true.
Get hold on Heaven, on eternity.
There are many empty thrones in Heaven,
after corrupted Angels were expelled.
These thrones will be given to the holy people.
Bad Colonists will be expelled as corrupted Angels.
Ask any Roman Catholic Priest to baptize you.
Petition Kateri Tekakwitha your holy sister
and abandon every false religion.
I Art am the Father of your Church,
guarding and advising you.
There are thousands of schismatic churches,
but they are just tombs without God.