RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: AMERICAN JUSTICE
Clemency (for Leonard Peltier)
Half a century behind bars
For crimes he did not commit
Fifty years proclaiming injustice
Five decades of taking the hit
For the crime of not being sorry
That the FBI agents were dead
For surviving the deadly shootout
That the FBI agents led
Way back in the year of seventy-three
On the Pine Ridge Reservation
At a place called Wounded Knee
In the heart of the Oglala nation
The American Indian Movement
Planted a staff and laid their claim
To justice the Indian way
For seventy* days they held their ground
Seventy days to the nation’s shame
Two warriors of AIM lost their lives
Though few can remember their names**
They remember the name of Leonard Peltier
For he alone took the blame
For the shooting of agents Coler and Williams
For the killing of both the same
Peltier was not at Wounded Knee
But he was chosen to pay the price
A person of native bloodline
Had to make that sacrifice
There is no justice in America
As long as Leonard Peltier is held
For the crimes of someone unknown
Half a century spent in hell
* seventy-one
** Frank Clearwater & Buddy Lamont
