Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?

[I wrote this a few days after I saw that Congress was trying to pass a resolution on the fiftieth anniversary to request that Japan apologize for Pearl Harbor.]

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"Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?"

the Japanese were not the first
to bomb Pearl Harbor
we were

so i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor

just as soon as we apologize to the Hawaiians
for bringing the mosquito and yellow fever
killing thousands

for bringing venereal disease

for the horror of sugar cane

and purple mountains travesties
above the looted plains

for sabotaging the beaches with kiawe thorn trees
to force the natives to drape their bodies
from the hot gaze

of their twisted
goddamned
christian missionary eyes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to the Japanese Americans
for interning them in concentration camps

and as soon as Richard Nixon's Quakers apologize
for stealing their properties

(which were left to them in trust to be returned upon their release
which they were not)


I think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

(still simulated every year at a Texas airfield)


i will always remember how the blast fused their shadows
into the building walls

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize to the Native Americans
for the ruin of their culture

the theft of their lands

the whiskey and infected blankets

the destruction of their hunting grounds

and for stripping them of all humanity and dignity

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America apologizes
to the African Americans

for slavery

beatings

emasculations

rapes

hobblings and brandings

pretended emancipations

segregation

lynchings

and

the slandering
imprisonment
and murder of their heroes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to Cambodia

for 3640 B-52 bombing raids
and 110,000 bombs dropped
during a war that never took place

and for backing Pol Pot
as the legitimate representative of the people

(i remember to this day
the pyramid mountain of skulls outside Pnom Phen)

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
as soon as Attila apologizes to Rome

Salome apologizes to John the Baptist

on the day that politicians become honest
bankers become generous

no fault applies to love

and the Pope shits in the woods


and should be delivered to the White House

by a woman on ice skates

ten minutes after Hell freezes over



A song:

♫ Frogman ♫