Subversify is happy to welcome KK-Rivers who is best summed up using a play on a John Le Carre title: Tinker, Artist, Mother, Spy. Her writing has landed in several publications in Chicago, including the Windy City Times and Southtown Star. A former editor of DIY:happy, she champions the cause of using trash to construct treasure – often creating jewelry, electronics, paintings, and other forms of art in the process, some of which can be intermittently found in her Etsy store, Steel Crucible. Her non-writing day job involves being a commercial spy (really, she even wears disguises), but she’s also had a myriad of jobs: skiptracer, SFX makeup artist, repo woman, clown. She is currently the Social Media Volunteer Coordinator for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. A native Chicagoan, her dirty bare-Roma-feet have skipped off to the wild yonder of Appalachia, where she currently resides in East Tennessee with her husband/partner-in-thoughtcrime, Rick, her homeschooled prodigious progeny, Dahlia, and her kitty, Pumpkin Bitey. Half of her family is vegetarian. She will continue writing endlessly, if you let her – evidence of this can be found on her blog, Radical Mom, Radical Kid. @dahliamama is where she tweets.
By: KK-Rivers
*Patriotism is Ignorance.*
Fearless, the noble creature
defied the determination of that car.
Courageous, the mother animal
stood
awaiting this fate to
protect her little lambs; their freedom.
Honorable, she
leapt as a sacrifice, into the mouth of the metal beast,
intending on
perpetuating her legacy. “She
was a brave one, she
was.
Fought for us all.”
Her last thoughts:
which way do I go
which way do I –
a bleat and a smash.
and you call this: __ bravery?
__ courage?
__ honor?
__ sacrifice?
Forgive me for only seeing
a sheep crossing the street.
Wonderful metaphor. Thank you for this very poignant poetry.
I have to agree with the sentiments expressed in this poem – the “noble sacrifice” of the state’s military/paramilitary forces do remind me of herd animals being rounded up for the slaughter: dying so that their beloved masters might live in comfort at the expense of the repressed throngs of people…
How about love of Earth instead of nationalism, and love for all life (not just people) instead of patriotism?
Barring that, everyone in the world is going to really hate America and Americans and their stupid devotion to their homicidal excuse for a country, and then patriotism will be all that’s left for the proud sheeple of the US of Ignorance.
Oh wait, that’s already happened.