Eric Cockrell

I carried the cross of Jesus,
stood inside the Nazi camps.
i fled with many at Hiroshima,
died again and again in the jungles
of napalm Vietnam...
i buried the scattered bones
of Native Americans,
slain by the Bible's swords.
i rotted in a Chinese prison,
where they tortured me with cattle prods.
i marched the famines of Africa,
weeping over the bodies of children.
marching the sands of Iraq,
the mountains of Afghanistan...
but there is more!

the broken down projects,
the trailer park cementaries.
the unemployed lines,
the soup lines,
the picket lines.
i was shot crossing the border,
no one ever knew my name.
i died in your underpaid fields,
buried nameless in your mines...
i lost my soul a thousand times,
on your heroin flesh bartered corners....

i carried the cross of Jesus...
and laid it down on your Senate floor!