Weehawken June 7, 2020

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Skylands Jun 7, 2020

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another manifesto

Another manifesto stating the obvious 

Plain spoken with no attempt at guise or guile 

Nothing like the poetry favored by the literati

Included in their precious curated collections.

Is it poetry if it lacks metaphors and images

Making no obscure references no allusions 

Simply and directly expressing thoughts and feelings 

To be easily understood by anyone who breathes.

If the medium is the message then that explains it

Remembering what I did to an ivy league literary magazine 

Words printed in fancy fonts on fine paper bound elegantly 

Became typed words mimeographed on coarse paper stapled.

What once was esoteric and sold to a self-selected few

Made over into a kind of broadsheet given away 

Like a bundle of leaflets distributed without pretensions 

Handed to a wider audience than refined readers of poetry. 

And now I publish poems on a website hosted for free 

Available to all to view provided they have the link

But otherwise undiscovered almost like the dark web

Writing like another vox clamantis in deserto.

It matters to me to speak from the heart

Encouraged by the memory of dear friends gone now 

Who helped me to find my voice in their time

Knowing something said well honors them.

Laurelwood June 3, 2020

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endemic

In this pandemic every stranger is a threat 

Whether or not they look like trouble 

Best to step out of their way to let them pass

Sizing them up as potential danger approaches.

There will be no end to the need for vigilance 

Because the coronavirus will become endemic 

Even if a vaccine is developed in the future 

Many people will not be vaccinated. 

After weeks and then months of shutdown restrictions 

The desire to be liberated to be able to live free from fear

The frustration of ordinary pleasures taken away 

Something like the lifetime experience of the oppressed.

Think about living your whole life always under tension 

Knowing you may be beaten and locked up or killed 

For some minor or imagined transgression 

Because of the color of your skin.

Exposed at low pay work to the deadly pandemic virus 

Or facing eviction going hungry thrown out of work 

Having lives sacrificed forced to live in close quarters 

This is the racial and class divide crying out for justice. 

Endemic racism circulating as a virulent disease

Infecting white people but killing people of color

Brutal when blue lives murder with impunity 

No less insidious when hiding behind white enclaves.

There will be no vaccine to stop the hatred

Though it would be good to make racists afraid again 

There will be no full embrace of equal rights and opportunity 

Until those who benefit from division are dispossessed. 

The power structure set up during centuries of slavery 

Maintained through terrorism during Jim Crow KKK lynching 

Present today in mass incarceration and disenfranchisement 

Police brutality continues a long history of oppression. 

At bottom it is about protecting the property of the few

Against the poor and working people who create the wealth 

In this land that was stolen from the natives in the first place 

Tilled and planted in soil soaked in the blood of slaves.

To liberate ourselves we must liberate their property 

Taking collective ownership in the name of all the people 

Dedicating our work to the common good over profits 

That will create the conditions to be free at last.