DESOLATE PERÚ
(a photographic narrative)
2015 © christopher hönninger
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
hello friend,
i want to share some words with you.
which tell where i'm from.
you see,
i'm from where natives followed the sun
and prayed to the mounts.
but were shut by the barrel of a gun
and left for counts.
where these very people
were replaced by the screams of horses,
and left without a thing
but to pray to their conquerors' voices.
a god of excuses and greed,
made only to cover up the wounds
that should naturally bleed.
i'm from where this history
actually holds the pillars of society;
and anyone that knows it,
can foretell
into which destiny people fell.
a society portrayed by a man;
a thief,
possibly naive,
to buy himself into the presidential bed.
inadvertently chained
and drained
by a system he cannot even reign.
a man made
by the very society he must aid,
to rule and keep the circle of deceit
closed and just, just beneath his feet.
i'm from where screams
are heard
only then,
when change is short of mere dreams.
where not being disrespectful and a liar
leaves you sitting behind,
stupid and dire.
where the only snow that can kill,
constitutes this land's precious skill.
and nobody wonders whether,
if so many mothers cry
this should be a subject of pride.
but either way,
i could weigh the rivers of blood,
only to stay waiting
and be left misunderstood.
i could wish for the idiocy
of words that stop bullets.
a talk of millenia.
a fallacy.
i could try to understand
all the issues that most seem to simply
hide beneath the golden sand.
but i won't.
perhaps because i mirror the culture i frown upon;
where the actions of a folk comprise a collective yawn.
perhaps because i'm from where all is meant to be seen,
through squinted eyes under a raging sun.
perhaps because my home is a number
a three
neglected and not free.
