I Am An American.

I am an American
I have the right to remain silent.
I wish to refuse that right-
And if you refuse that right
Everything you say can and will be used
Against you.
Well, I am a poet also...
So that is what I want.
I am of the opinion
That words are not mine until
I am accountable to them.
I am of the opinion that words are the greatest
power
Man can have,
And if I don't have words that are mine then I
am powerless.
I will not be powerless
And I will not be silent.
I have that right
I am an American.

I am an American.
I have the right to say whatever I want,
And I am a poet
So I can say that shit well.
And you have been warned.

In the mouths of poets
Words are like actions:
They define you.

And if your words don't define you,
Then why are you talking?
If you're not trying to go forward,
Then why are you walking?
You should sit down and shut up
And you have that right
But I'm a poet and an American
And my pencil sparks light
With each word that I write;
And I will stand here and fight
To the dawns early light;
As the bombs burst in air
I will stand right there
And I will speak my mind.
I have that right.

I am an American.

I, truthfully, am the truth
You never fully told.
And still don't tell,
But I tell the truthof who you are,
Because I am who you are--
I am an American...
And I tell the truth.

I am old women in department stores
Built atop the consecrated bones
Of Crazy Horse.
I sign credit cards receipts like treaties I don't
intend to honor.
A legacy of debt that can never be repayed.
I am restitution
For the sweet dreams that can't come
To the children who die
Beacuse...
Hush-little baby, don't say a word
And you can't say a word...
Because we built Sears atop your grave
So you can't talk about the blankets soaked with
smallpox
That the government gave.
I am the dead Iroquois babies swaddled in
smallpox
Who watched the chickens come home.
I, Malcom X I-
"I am not here to condemn America
I am here to tell the truth
And if the truth condemns America,
She stands condemned."
I am the so many bones, of the so many balck
men and women,
That fell to ocean bottoms like tracks of the
underwater railroad
That led the wrong way to freedom.
I am all the blank walls standing tall
A middle passage memorial
To the names we do mot know.
I am Japanese-American families
Standing in US internment camps
Concentrating on blank walls,
Remembering Harriet Tubman,
And slow dancing with the ghosts of Cherokees
Imprisoned in Alcatraz
Before they admitted Alcatraz was a prison
And they called it a reservation.
I am all the people imprisoned by the lies we
don't admit to
I am all the people trapped inside the history
that never happened
I am the skeletons in the closet of the people who
died waitng for their
Truth to come out.
I am the truth coming out

I am America.

And if you say that I am wrong,
That if we are not our history,
IF there is nothing but our present
Then we must re-examine our scriptures with an
eye for histroical context
And look at our constitution with a mind to
reaffirm.
For we are not created equal until we say so,
And no commandments are contractually
binding,
And all rights are alienable again.
And freedom isn't certain
But this is-
I am an American
And I pledge allegiance to no flag
And our States are not United.
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation under God,
I say to you this:
There is no one nation under God,
Unless that nation is the world.
For God made
the world
And man made
Nations,
And if God were to honor man-made nations
He would do so under this condition...
That he would honor them all equally,
The way he made them.
So to pledge to one
Is to pledge against others
And to pledge against others
Is to pledge against God
And I'm not ready to go to war with God.
And despite the fact that I think war is wrong...
I am an American.

And I pledge to no flag
But to the people...
Who made it,
Who wave it,
Who salute it,
Who burn it,
Who hide behind it,
I pledge to you.
I pledge to see you clearly
And love you dearly
Like people,
Like mortals,
Like flawed individuals
Who bring your flaws to my America
And sometimes make mistakes.
And when you doI will tell you,
And if you do not hear me
I will not get silent
I will do the opposite:
I will make noise.
You are wrong to go to war
You are wrong to ignore the homeless,
To exploit the poor.
You are wrong to put money
Above life on this earth.
You are wrong to judge people
By how much they are worth.
You are wrong to think
You are entirely free,
If you want me to be silent because you don't
agree.
I am an American
And I will not be silent.

I will not be silent because you will be
Or because you want me to be
Or because you think it wrong to disaree with
my country.
You should read the Bill of Rights and
understand...
This poem was my country's idea.
I am an American
And I will not be silent
I will not be silent
I will not be silent
And you should use these words against me.
--Steve Connell (2003)--