Michael Philips - Conquistadors

Oje con los dessalladores.
Beware the developers.

Here's a photo
of poplar saplings and sagebrush colonies
that were never here.
See the ant hills and hares
that were never here.

Here's a photo
of the naïve New World natives,
startled at the sight of horses and muskets,
barely flinching behind ancient eyesight
at the blades and blood,
for the aliens are angry gods.

Oje con los dessalladores.
Beware the developers,
cajoling the mayor into outlandish goosestepping
drinking at the lacquered bar
on expense accounts,
removing their ties and cufflinks
at the end of a grinding day,
knowing, as they grunt in personal toilet stalls,
that the angels sing for them.

Oje con los dessalladores.
Beware the future.
If you are a conquistador
you scrape your brain
of poplar saplings and sagebrush colonies.
You boil the ants and hares
In the oil pans of backhoes.
You understand the need
to slash the throats of New World natives,
to bind them with strange words and deities,
and transform them into grotesque effigies
that shine like trophies
and wear death masks and cufflinks.

Michael Philips

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/conquistadors/