the claims of the English to this territory were as shadowy as their knowledge of it
walked out of tommy's today and saw a guy getting wailed on
on Lucas Sullivant: "an erect carriage and a good walk, a well-balanced head"
…
colonizers regarded the mounds as "fit objects for the subduing influence of the plow"
engineers "cut thru or leveled them for the gravel they contained."
on Wyandots: "Theirs were the cornfields planted in the meadow openings where
Franklinton was built, and theirs the Indian village whose smoking lodges stood in the
forest where now stands the city of cowtown"
the city of xxxxxxxx a gory cesspit
its history is a series of frontiers
eternal war
i do not have to say
anything else
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Cattle Sonnet 7
"a guy came by today, when i walked out the side door of the office he was talking with steve, i don't kno about what but he said to me something about brains and brawn. like we have both. "he had an ss tattoo on his neck and an upside down cross tattooed across his brow, eye, below his eye. stitches on his lips "he followed me into the office and asked if i would give him cash for a gas card with $11.06 on it. he said he’d give it to me for $6. doesn’t have a vehicle. "said i’m in here with the struggle and talked about how he loved to slay his demons (vices) and talked some fumbling story about how he used a hooker. "wasn’t intelligible or coherent... "when he sat down at a chair at the long table in the office he asked if it was okay if he came closer (before sitting) and when he left he asked for a sip of water from the basin and took many long gulps, then fist bumped me and left."
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Cattle Sonnet 8
the ordinance of 1787:
"the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the
Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them
without their consent"
in 1795 indigenous nations ceded much of Ohio country to u.s. on the basis of
"vicious irregular warfare" U.S. military destroying Shawnee villages and fields
murdering women, children, and old men." even after u.s. victory @ the battle at fallen timbers
(1794) u.s. continued for three days destroying Shawnee buildings and ag.1
council: ay beerslayer, cities are like human mortals; having small beginnings + ending w broad
shoulders and wide mouths. u don't see the ppl, bc they pass atween high steep banks
beerslayer: i shd think the city so open, that it would be sartain to draw $$$
a citee só reduced in2 absolute essence (of citee)
1 An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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AUSTIN MILES is from southeast Ohio. He has poems published in Moss Trill, Eulogy, Ballast, and elsewhere.