They put Gonzalo's* head upon a spike.
'Yet mayst thou be caudillos we dislike.
Thou shouldst not chafe under such bounds as set'.
Against such bounds caudillos ever fret.
No mere head on a spike is so good as to free,
though it was well removed I'm the first to agree.
Hey! You missed one.** He got back to Spain with his head
and alas! -- what a shame! whom to blame? -- died in bed.
I guess they didn't have a plane to drop
him drugged among the Andes in those days.
They sure had something like 'La Catedral'!***
Castillo de la Mota had no pool...
I see all the waving of banners,
the slobber on Bolivar's feet.
But I sense not this gloss but the ghosts
of Gonzalo Pizarro, Hernández Girón.
I cry, 'Death to the lie!'
I cry, 'Death to the mask!'
I cry, 'Death to the honor of liars & slavers forever!'
* Gonzalo's head! & Co. He led a rebellion in Peru against the Spanish Empire because of the latter's promulgation of the New Laws, which prevented the conquistadors from enslaving natives and using them as forced labor. The Spanish Crown had Gonzalo executed, but it also repealed the New Laws and recognized that it could not be as nice as it wanted to be; because it would inevitably face costly rebellions, some successful perhaps.
** Hernando Pizarro was the only roach in the nest to make it back to Spain. He was imprisoned in luxurious conditions analogous to those of Pablo Escobar in Castillo (Castle) de la Mota.
***Pablo Escobar's 'prison'
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