[Xicanisma Prophecies Post-2012] / Putin's Puppet Ana Castillo (bio) is not Aryan (or a golden-hair-Thor) but through & through as close to yellow as it gets.A flim-flam man claiming billions no one sees. He & the Czarhad a chat at the Ritz, in a bar,over Red Bull, vodka, coke and complimentary chips,served up by naked women who took American Express and rubles in I.O.U.s.One rat said,You take the East. I'll snatch the West.It's all for the taking for swines like us and our friends (ha-ha,like 'we' have friends), rapacious and sly,unconcerned with who or how many die as we take the planet. Don't worry, man.Forget the jaundiced Chinese & Rocketman (we'll send to the moon.)France can eat escargot. Palestinians must go. We'll suck the earth dry. You & I,pillage until we are down to two. We'll compete for the universe.Fair enough? (Haw, one said. As if we define fair by anyone's terms.) [End Page 177] I, the poet, rest my head on a pillow or a rock, the throb is the same,my brain doesn't stop its slideshow of doom.Viewing Dr. Strangelove scenes,reruns play & no new plots.No breathtaking aerial shots of an Aston Martin headed along the coast toward thevillain's hideout.No soundtrack. (We are all silent, not censored, not yet, but quiet, waiting.)No scientific facts in this version of a world for the taking.No historical reference without revisiones. . . [stop](No Spanish allowed or you may be arrested.)They are watching, legions in camouflage, hoods or riot gear, ready to take you out.On your mark and get set. Putin's Puppet doesn't read books—a novel or a memoir,sit through films or listen to a symphony or even the Top Twenty.He doesn't look at art.Consequently, he has shut beauty down.Putin's Puppet knows one color, said his son, and that is green. [End Page 178] I will disagree. Putin's Puppet does see color and it revolts him.Blacks belong in Africa, he opines, and Muslims must stay in the Mid-East.Mexicans are the scourge.He doesn't want us on his turf.It's as simple as this: racist.Race in the second decade of the 21st century to him exists . . . like with his father,his father before him and so on—it serves one purpose.Servitude or genocide.As for women, we are unimportant.You kill a rhino for sport or for its horns. [You keep a woman only if she enhancesyour life.]He's the big man on campus with a loyal fraternity, he thinks.Instead, I see anarchy merged with insanity, a fake man wrapped in a dictator's cloak.How did we get here? How did we, indeed.Not without concessions, not without greed. Down the rabbit holethe nation went into Wonder-less slime.We are in it deep this time.When I can't sleep, I spot the devil pissing in the dark.I've lost feeling in my hands and feet.I am an indian woman off the reservation,as they say now, in racialist double-speak.But in this country where democracy remained an aspiration, not a reality,we still do reservations for the original peoples of the land.Take a moment—this poet asks—take a moment to think on that. [End Page 179] Ana Castillo Ana Castillo is a celebrated poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator, and independent scholar. Born and raised in Chicago, she has contributed to periodicals and online venues and national magazines. Her writings have been the subject of scholarly research and publications. Among her bestselling titles are So Far from God (1993); Peel My Love Like an Onion (1999); The Guardians (2007); and the volume of poetry I Ask the Impossible (2001). Her novel Sapogonia (1994) was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has been profiled and interviewed on National Public Radio and History Channel, and was a radio-essayist with NPR in Chicago. Castillo holds an...