Nicaragua

Breakfast woodsmoke on the breeze --
 On the cliff the U.S. Embassy
 Frowns out over Managua like Dracula's tower.
 The kid who guards Fonseca's tomb
 Cradles a beat-up submachine gun --
 At age fifteen he's a veteran of four years of war
 Proud to pay his dues
 He knows who turns the screws
 Baby face and old man's eyes
 Blue lagoon and flowering trees --
 Bullet-packed masaya streets
 Full of the ghosts of the heroes of Monimbo
 Women of the town laundry
 Work and gossip and laugh at me --
 They don't believe I'll ever send them the pictures I took.
 For every scar on a wall
 There's a hole in someone's heart
 Where a loved one's memory lives
 In the flash of this moment
 You're the best of what we are --
 Don't let them stop you now
 Nicaragua
 Sandino in his tom mix hat
 Gazes from billboards and coins
 "Sandino vive en la lucha por la paz"
 Sandino of the shining dream
 Who stood up to the U.S. marines --
 Now Washington panics at U2 shots of "Cuban-style" latrines
 In the flash of this moment
 You're the best of what we are --
 Don't let them stop you now
 Nicaragua