The Dead Do Not Bury the Dead Nor Know They Are Dead
John Horváth
Some fools a long dead ancient majesty
proclaim when they should take no pride
in monuments to arrogance and folly
but hunt enemies as jackals might: run
them from hiding places, break their
necks with angry shouts, eat the flesh
of shame turned carrion with guilt that
saps them of their speed and guile.
Unfind the bloody eastern hemisphere
they called The West in feudal insolence
and most ancient ignorance concerning
of how the sun returns to earth. From
Eastern Spreading Ocean comes sunrise
upon a Pequod shore to gilt Appalachian
crest and flooded Amazon, upon Andean
heights to bewele the Huron Sea and
Father of all waters, the herded plains,
Upon it shine upon majestic continental
spine which births the spine of heaven
that brightens night. Into Peaceful
Waters the sun does set. This Eden
Those Fools who think it otherwise had
Long ago escaped. They’d have you claim
Yourself subject to some dark tribal
chief, some monarch hidden from cold
in some bleak castle built of dominance
or some eternal-claim of sun god fool,
a potentate of divide, some sham guru
of conquest or the walkabout. They who
have nothing we should need. Those who
think AngloSaxon or Teuton high, Bantu
or Arab equal to our souls that slowly
blend, Chin or Shogun superior by time,
the Fakir and the guru beyond all our
possibility should swift return to their
claimed birthright and they who worship
at their feet go with them too. I am not
Caesar, Charlemagne, nor Genghis.
Neither Atilla nor Mansa Musa would
I be. Let no Hero, Pharisee, nor Pharoah
tempt you otherwise. Stand. Dwell upon
this land that gave you birth and wealth
that none has seen before, a sustenance
to raise an ancient jealously against
what we have done in such short time.
Take names of water, snow, and rivers
here about; take names from the hidden
places ancient to be your own. Call
yourself a beast that roams these lands.
Become a native fish or fowl, a native
then spurn the stupid past and all its
hates. Turn from that other roiling
continent, a half of circle incomplete,
the wellspring source of all our sins.
Distrust Eurasian truth and find your
reality and reason upheld by saints,
metropolitans, and patriarchs sustained
among us from their birth. Reject all
eastern protest and reform. Make ours
a land renewed with its own thought.
Study roots and first books; teach that
Trek from how they came to be then
fall from grace to social ways and
scientific fetishes. The club of us,
our community apart they curse
and fear in their demise. Let our
parts, true center of the universe,
be called Water Father, Savior Isles,
and Ancient Spirit -- a trinity of one,
apart from past and present, apart from
false Nuevas, Novas, News that others
claimed. Let us take up tongues of folk
native to these mountains and our seas
and river veins that nourish earth, let
us become who welcomed us. Like them,
mysterious beginnings and mixed blood
is the strongest bond of blood.
The future is mixed blood.
John Horváth
Some fools a long dead ancient majesty
proclaim when they should take no pride
in monuments to arrogance and folly
but hunt enemies as jackals might: run
them from hiding places, break their
necks with angry shouts, eat the flesh
of shame turned carrion with guilt that
saps them of their speed and guile.
Unfind the bloody eastern hemisphere
they called The West in feudal insolence
and most ancient ignorance concerning
of how the sun returns to earth. From
Eastern Spreading Ocean comes sunrise
upon a Pequod shore to gilt Appalachian
crest and flooded Amazon, upon Andean
heights to bewele the Huron Sea and
Father of all waters, the herded plains,
Upon it shine upon majestic continental
spine which births the spine of heaven
that brightens night. Into Peaceful
Waters the sun does set. This Eden
Those Fools who think it otherwise had
Long ago escaped. They’d have you claim
Yourself subject to some dark tribal
chief, some monarch hidden from cold
in some bleak castle built of dominance
or some eternal-claim of sun god fool,
a potentate of divide, some sham guru
of conquest or the walkabout. They who
have nothing we should need. Those who
think AngloSaxon or Teuton high, Bantu
or Arab equal to our souls that slowly
blend, Chin or Shogun superior by time,
the Fakir and the guru beyond all our
possibility should swift return to their
claimed birthright and they who worship
at their feet go with them too. I am not
Caesar, Charlemagne, nor Genghis.
Neither Atilla nor Mansa Musa would
I be. Let no Hero, Pharisee, nor Pharoah
tempt you otherwise. Stand. Dwell upon
this land that gave you birth and wealth
that none has seen before, a sustenance
to raise an ancient jealously against
what we have done in such short time.
Take names of water, snow, and rivers
here about; take names from the hidden
places ancient to be your own. Call
yourself a beast that roams these lands.
Become a native fish or fowl, a native
then spurn the stupid past and all its
hates. Turn from that other roiling
continent, a half of circle incomplete,
the wellspring source of all our sins.
Distrust Eurasian truth and find your
reality and reason upheld by saints,
metropolitans, and patriarchs sustained
among us from their birth. Reject all
eastern protest and reform. Make ours
a land renewed with its own thought.
Study roots and first books; teach that
Trek from how they came to be then
fall from grace to social ways and
scientific fetishes. The club of us,
our community apart they curse
and fear in their demise. Let our
parts, true center of the universe,
be called Water Father, Savior Isles,
and Ancient Spirit -- a trinity of one,
apart from past and present, apart from
false Nuevas, Novas, News that others
claimed. Let us take up tongues of folk
native to these mountains and our seas
and river veins that nourish earth, let
us become who welcomed us. Like them,
mysterious beginnings and mixed blood
is the strongest bond of blood.
The future is mixed blood.
