silence to you,
voice of the end.

silence, I command you to 
silence, to your ears
opening wider than your maw
of a yapping face. 

silence I tell you,
silence from your
cottonmouth brain,
your self-important
hemlock breath,
your falsely righteous
gas chamber
world view.

free speech,
you scream, give me my free
spew. as if you’ve ever
paid for any of what you’ve said.
as if there’s ever been 
much if any cost to you
for being this loud.

I hear what clatters 
out of your body
and I cannot call you
by your given name
and feel clean. 
you don’t sound 
like a real person. you sound
possessed, or gone
from your shell, supplanted by 

this stench. this is not sound
you are speaking. this is
odor. this screams in all my parts
that hold history. memory

of hangings, massacres.
of camps and reservations.
of the rule of thumb and 
the machinery of rape. the land
drained. the people drained.

if I were to give you a name 
it would be cristoforo colombo.
it would be bull connor.
it would be aristotle.

if i had magick I’d say:

silence, then.
silence, you voice of 
end all, be all, screaming for 
obedience to the dead and gone.
I bind you to silence.
I cast you into it.
silence, I say.
you are now made historical,
caught in the pages of a book
which can be closed upon you.

we will always know you’re there.
we just can’t know you now.