For Salvadore Allende And Pablo Neruda by Alan Britt

I crawled from a lily pad
ripped by the claw of a caiman
gliding Zen-like down the muddy Amazon.

I hopped onto the best consciousness
I could muster,
leaning on one forelimb,
gills flared.

I thrust myself,
utilizing massive, amphibious fins,
into a bank vault
filled with echoes
left behind by CIA trainees
designed to procure the deaths
of a newly elected Socialist Democrat
and his Communist poet running mate.

Profits for U.S. corporations
were valued over peace and prosperity,
over an elevated life for lowly Chileans.

The United Fruit Company revisited.

No wonder imagination remains the final
uncharted landscape
for our ego-imprisoned souls.

In fact, it’s a wonder love poems
weren’t outlawed eons ago!

Sorry. I forgot.
Sometimes I get like that.

http://thesoundofpoetryreview.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/alan-britt-american-poet/