nothing less

It's going to be a life and death struggle

To compel the fossil fuel extraction industry 

To leave all that money in the ground 

Expropriating the billionaire owners.

The good of the planet and the people of the world

Our rallying cry against the self serving capitalists

Requires nothing less than removing their class 

Taking the power from them to change everything. 

Right now they are in complete control

The courts the police the politicians all do their bidding 

The media tell us anything else is unthinkable 

Even as the climate crisis emergency hits home. 

But when the idea of the socialist alternative takes hold

Spreading through every place and every way

Mobilizing all manner of actions to seize the day

There will be no stopping the determined population.

Today their government eliminates all restraints

Against the rapacious destruction of the environment

In a desperate rush to cash in at the last minute

Before popular anger slams the door shut. 

Tomorrow necessity will be the mother of invention

Transforming how we live and work together

Based on a whole earth health awareness

With science in the service of global well being.

engendered pronouns

She came up to me as she walked past

There in the back of the room during exercise class

Me active following along doing the workout moves

She unrecognized an unfamiliar face not participating. 

I looked at her as she spoke round face with white hair

Heard her tell me I had my harem around me

And I frowned back without pausing as she walked away

Feeling put off confused and disturbed by her remark.

She was aware as I am aware I am among women there

One of the few men at the senior center in the class

Where my moves seem awkward among the practiced ones

Where at times I feel out of place like an interloper misfit.

I do not expect to hear a sexist joke from a woman

Expecting I would be amused and pleased

As a kind of backhanded welcome to me in this group

That would make me complicit in oppressing women.

And who am I to deny having lived with the advantage 

Being male in a world where patriarchy is in everything 

Where fear of rape and violence against women is palpable 

Even in this room of warm bodies in exercise clothes.

If only a single pronoun were sufficient for all of us 

Like the way children might be if they were dressed as neutral

Before puberty hormones engender her adult shape

And the difference outlines their history of exploitation. 

Franklin Lakes Nature Preserve November 3, 2019

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Celery Farm October 30, 2019

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