Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Mahood: Manipulated Destiny

Manipulated Destiny
By David Mahood

We bestowed upon them the Dawes Act,
and we dare to use the phrase “Indian giver.”
Sequestering Natives—a form of treatment known to gray wolves and grizzly bears.

Plains warriors resigned to plows, hoes and spades, counting seed not coup,
watching the exodus of the buffalo by the lights of the Union Pacific.

We sheared the bangs of their children in Carlisle, Pennsylvania
so they could look like their conquerors.
We banned their Sun Dance to save them from hell.

Alcoholism, greed, disease, poverty and suicide,
we’ve taught them enough, I think.

But I want to ride breechcloth on bareback, shirtless and sun-drenched
ranging boundless across the unmilked bosom of the Prairie.

I want to dance beneath virgin skies unsolicited by city lights,
dwell in nomadic villages that leave no footprint on land that has no price.
Be quenched by rivers yet to run red.

David Mahood has been writing intermittently for fifteen years. His published work reflects a range of interest from environmental issues and his business, Olive Designs, to more intimate writing in poems, which have been published in Lone Wolf Review, Writer's Cramp, Geneseo Bicentennial Celebration and Fifth Street Review. Splitting time between Massachusetts and North Carolina, he can be found in traffic on I-95 north or south. He is also a proud father of two boys and Maryann's permanent partner.