Fixed Frequencies

Here in the land that Abraham was promised to receive
We listen to you catechize from your pulpit overseas
You mourn the proof of our barbarity

Dry your eyes, oh Pharisee. We both speak a settler’s can't
We both read from the same old played out scripts and hum familiar tunes
Broadcast on fixed frequencies, stuck in locking grooves

We both profess noble intent
As we civilize human impediments
If your hands are clean then noblesse oblige
That you wipe those "who me?" looks off of your faces and concede

Our designs are separated by
Nothing more than place and time
Different scenes, same crimes
Pray, let him without sin cast the first statues of

Former rogues turned folk heroes
That your grandfathers hung
Don't lecture me about plundered soil
While you loaf upon your father's spoils

We want nothing more than what you already have
A comforting of exculpatory "facts"
Like, say, the myth of an empty land and a conquest so complete
We can pull these tanks from our streets and

Hand the loose ends over to bureaucrats and become just like you -
Lounging carefree in cafes, absolved from sin
And human grenades. Entre nous
How did your desert bloom?