Leonard Peltier (He's Still There)

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

Leonard Peltier

 

All these years Leonard Peltier

Spent in prison

All these years the liberal intelligentsia

Promised to free him

(a promise like a million treaties broken)

He’s still there

With a cross to bear

Waiting for a day that never comes

 

Dylan sang for the Hurricane

(the man the authorities came to blame

for something he never done)

Hurricane Carter was released and

Dylan won the Nobel prize

Who sings for Peltier?

Convicted for being there

For having a name people knew

For having a defiant attitude

For being a troublesome Indian

For daring to stand up for his people

 

The FBI declared war on the sacred

bloodstained ground of Wounded Knee

They took aim at the warriors of AIM

And they paid a price in blood

But only Leonard Peltier faced

Trumped up charges and

Went to prison for forty years

 

Ain’t it time to let go?

Ain’t it time to let him breathe the air?

How much longer must he suffer

for our sins?