Fallecido

Dictators die & their death
can only be shameless
the embarassment of all the honors
they arrogated unto themselves.

For years & years on end
like the seventeen years
of untold sorrows for this new one
who finally decided to die
the cold terrorism
they inflicted on others
graced & blessed
the brutalized bodies
of their countrymen
their tyrants' trophies.

The dictators' nemesis
are always the defenders of the people
the dictators do not defend
but subjugate in fear
in trembling in depriving
what love gives.

The dictators torture and torment
the dream of those who love the poor
punish them to the full for speaking out
for saying what needs to be said
about the millenium of miseries
citizens are heir to for centuries
about atrocities their soldiers committed
in the name of delusional democracies
in the name of phony peace as if these are grains
of corn for taco or a bundle of burrito for a feast.

Or some boiled rice watered salted
consumed with the quiet ceremony
of the valled hand content
with what it has.

Today, the land this dictator
left behind is estranged, the grieving
& the triumphing deadly divided.

Ha fallecido, says one banner
announcing the end to all these
the illusions & the fantastic fates
that for years glued, shackled
his people to the ground
still the poor & the penniless
as they were before, even before the before
like the people of my country
where dictators dutifully reigned
repeatedly, terrorizing us repeatedly
until one day we had to finally declare
freedom for what it was worth,
our lives and limbs on the loan
before armored tanks &
the games of generals greedy
for the lives and limbs of our children
who did not know no other names
rule and reign of self-appointed redeemers
except those who were on television each day
wearing authority as new saviors
those on the government newspaper each day
smiling to each promise they tell
on the books each day
residing on the pages announcing newness
in everything from the alphabet of corruption
to the zenith of depravity
declaring which official truths are to be recited
so children & us learn about
the meaning of their consequences
when truths were not for the keeping
but guarded in palaces for the elect
for those who did not plan to die
but died nevertheless.

Three thousands enemies died,
the wires say, the news a document
to what dictators can do.

Another thousand are nowhere
to be found, their shadows
in graves unmarked perhaps
so no one would ever know
and when dictators die
as in each country they turn
into a couldron of our rage
their secrets come to life
on their own and resurrect
the grief of our liberation.
So many died in my country as well,
so many disappeared,
& our dictators died too
without telling us
why those who died were killed
why those who disappeared disappeared.

When dictators die
red wines to reclaim lost life flow
as the victory champagnes from the vines
of ripened grapes nourished by the blood
of the dead and the disappeared
are now in bottles that bubble
with bursting relief, ultimately knowing
that in the days to come
there will be feasting
there will yet be tears.

This time, the feasting
the tears are our testament
to finally coming back to ourselves.
We then let dictators die
their own lonely death.

And no proxies, please.

A Solver Agcaoili
UH Manoa
Dec 10/06