The challenge today is to write using futurism and onomatopoeia in expressing our anger about what we want changed in the world. The main idea is to use tyopography and expletives for interest and emphasis...a bit difficult for me.
painting by Charles M. Russell
At dawn, a warble
or cock-a-doodle-doo
The screech of a night owl,
a whoo-whooo...
Nightly thumpety-thumps
of coyote or deer stealing nearby,
splish-splashes of men fishing,
soft whispers between women working
For hundreds of years the indigenous
knew nature's sounds
Smoke signals reigned as mass media
Life was hard but peaceful -
before the bitter, bloody battles
when the white man came to town,
before the murder of Sitting Bull,
before progress and
the Dakota Access Pipeline
Escalating winds
carried echoes of angry men
Standing Rock Sioux filed law suits
"Freedom means safe water,
keeping our sacred land!"
"Halt this building of the pipeline!!
..they proclaimed,
Promises broken,
sacred land desecrated,
not to mention more land and gold
taken from "them thar Black Hills!!"
and building a daunting dam where
once were only sharp chicken scratches
and ancient petriglifs
"This stinks!!" locals yelled
Everyday life now,
interrupted by out-of-towners -
the clip-clop of horse's hooves,
the crunching of boots in dirt and rocks
silenced by traffic tie-ups, "HONK, HONK!!"
Police came from out of state;
helicopters whirred in
"They keep upping the ante!"
exclaim the supporting tribes
Tensions mount on both sides
It's not just the fish sizzling in the pan!
Fake photos and lies posted on social media;
"It's a dog and pony show!!"
Phffffst - pepper spray and ZING -
painful tazers
"There's going to be a battle!!"
Jesse says:
"It's environmental racism
at it's worst!"
"Little time to react if there is a leak,"
say the Sioux
Preserving their history
has been scissored and ground between
millstones of greed and corruption,
The Sioux are not on the warpath
(stereotypical bullshit) yet,
but it could come to that -
only by standing up for their right
to clean, safe water
