Jealousy by Bob Atkinson

Jealousy

(c)2011 Bob Atkinson

oh those enemy of all times

sneaking into our lives

find out their intentions

go and capture some for asking

the governor had been explicit

do this as I have wished it

find me some trappers

bring them so I can ask

what intentions do the French have

what are they doing here

in this wide Spanish dominion

where I have carved my career?

onward the party traveled

into lands sparse of men

who came from the Old Land

where was the origin of standards

standards of civilization

where order instituted and prevailed

until some fighting began anew

between the Kings who coveted things

things of land

things of wealth

things of ideas

things of stealth

carry violence to the enemy

why? Because they are not us !!!

kill them without quarter

why? To make them powerless !!!

seems in their minds the correct thing

a judgment made, a useful killing

we have the army to impose

our ideals on those other folks

sound familiar?

on they trekked out to Nebraska

to the town of Columbus en-nee

down the path that would become

Howard Boulevard a hundred years hence

past Wagner's lake to encamp

near the 9th tee's benches

at Van Berg's green pastures

where the clubhouse

would be built and plastered

where fights with clubs wouldn't kill men

just hurt egos when attacking pins

bets made for competition

didn't have the same sad meaning

didn't end the lives of contestants

as it did 300 years before in battle

bets fought for on these same lands

in those old and violent days killed men

ford the river to the south side

where the others could be found

the ones conquered without power

to be enslaved by Spanish order

cross the river they did en mass

to encamp on the greenest of grasses

sitting idle for a long time

trying to contact the other side

awaiting an envoy from those bands

Pawnee and Otoe camped at Bellwood

nervous had they found themselves

as attacks were common and fiercely led

then the answer to their question

came with arrows tipped with poison

fire spears into their hearts

clubs of stone snapping necks

disaster

a few came back to Santa Fe

from this expedition to tell the way

their men had died from that attack

way up there in Nebraska

all those ears listened intensely

to what had been seen

and endured because of

a heathen savage horde

attacks from a fierce foe

killing men with whom they'd gone

described in most gory detail

shocking those who heard those words

was this a massacre or salvation

a good thing or a bad one?

depends upon your origin

where you come from,

your favored drink

your favored color

your imagined world

your created bubble

what you think is only a product

of years of ingrained thought processes

of that which seems natural because

that is the way it was

because your morals

change with time

they can't be understood

by another with a different life

ingrained and homogenized

into your brain until you die

particular feelings, a certain pride

is felt only by those

of your same kind