black on black on Black on
Timbs;
an interruption – no,
an intervention.
a reminder to the Columbus-ing ass fuckboys
(and girls) that
they
still
Poem for Fidel Castro (Song of Protest)
Fidel Castro with Chilean President Salvador Allende
“To defend our beloved Cuba.” The closing line of this poem from the great Chilean communist and surrealist writer Pablo Neruda rather sums up how working and oppressed people – in Latin America and around the world – are feeling in the wake of Fidel Castro's death. There is a lot to say about Castro the man, but it is far less important than the Cuban Revolution he helped lead, build and maintain for more than fifty years against the outside pressures of American empire.
Read moreFlawed Silence: Five Poems
Written she lapsed my eyelids curse
Never subjugated to her thoughts worse
Dreaming of twinkled themes her subconscious works
Works night and day because her lips she tamed
Her words released could leave bodies slain
Quiet in spite of riveting details
Still her mouth only inhales
Their thoughts she thunk perhaps prematurely
Leave: Three Sonnets
The flags snap in the wind, the whispered breath
that steals the words and whickers, horse and knight.
The fires mutter and crack in dying light
and breaths from noses mist, steal proof from death.
And here am I, rose up from lowly whore,
shown faces smashed by hooves, shown strength in spades.
Escape from Alien Nation
Installation by Danica Radoshevich at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum (St. Louis).
In this place
(a)
of radiator heat
of knife wounds
of claustrophobia
of totems like broken teeth
We've Charted the Flaming Arch
we've charted the flaming arch
of nitroglycerine stars
dreams that explode against reality
seen dragons emerge from clouds of tear gas
and men in shades of midnight run away
the Street muscle down skyscrapers
in cities perspiring chaos
The Muck
I came upon a stinking field of muck
and saw, within its depths, a golden cup.
Nothing for it. I hitched my trousers up
and waded in, heartsick when my feet stuck.
It took three hours for me to pull them out.
By then I'd learned to coast upon the slime.
The Legacy: A Dying Socialist to His Son
James Connolly, Derrybeg estate in Newry, Northern Ireland ("éirígí" means "rise" in Gaelic)
Sixteen men were executed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising – the seizure of the General Post Office in Dublin by Irish volunteers that took place one hundred years ago this week. Among those executed was James Connolly: leader of the Irish Citizen Army, trade unionist, revolutionary Marxist, de facto commander-in-chief of the Easter Rising.
Connolly has been canonized in the century since his death. That death – at the hands of an occupying British Army – is by itself enough to command respect of anyone concerned with self-determination, but there is also a certain tragedy in how overlooked his eloquent words and ideas can be, even today.
Read moreA Lecture
It just so happened
I was stumbling, bumbling, fumbling around
a bit tipsy and lit from the whisky that day.
I walked, talked, and came across some chalk,
Which in big, bright, bulbous letters yelled,
“Lecture this way!”
Crack the Vote
How can we crack the vote? We can't - it's made
of blood. It's built of creaking spines and skulls,
surrounded by a hundred filthy gulls
grown fat and sleek from scraps piled in the shade.
No, we can't crack it, only grab its tail
and climb the gory bones straight to the neck
and cling on for dear life, we scrabbling specks,
The Rapist David Bowie
Dirty his name? The dirt was always there,
just carried under nails of struggling girls,
in rucksacks, tossed in cupboards, hidden, curled
in elbows, tucked between their hats and hair.
The dirt was always there, beneath the shine,
between the lines we thought we understood,
in laurel leaves we garland round the good
Bloodsuckers and a Day in the Life...
Aside from my hands that
work 12 hours each day, the source
of my livelihood,
blood must be one of the most
valued part of my body.
I say this because
during the day
a large portion of it gets
Phoenix From Rain
"To have dominion was not to knock out, downpress, bruise, but to understand, to love, make at home." — Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters
I have a lot of things I think
I say. Now is the time to act.
Now is the time to act
by speaking. Now is the time
to speak by evicting the words
that have choked me. Now the words
Marionette Divorce (The Present Condition of Russia)
The enemy masses at ballet practice -
In this new theatre of red Madonnas,
military poetry is seen dimly glimmering
through the exquisite hostility of war.
This poetry has erred towards
emblems of superficial pathos.
Black Throated Sparrow
Who cares about who gets caught jumping
over someone else’s fence?
Mutts will bark.
Porch lights will sweep small critters
into another darkness.
Big deal.
Nothing will be stolen.
Mirroring Hybrid Unpatriots
Nosotros quienes no somos patriotas
Nacimiento vaginal una razón por amar a madre
pero no fronteras jurídicas
Cantamos “La Bamba Rebelde”
We will cross, we will cross, we will cross
Subside Not
♫ when i break up with my boyfriend
what i need is my best friends
when i break up with my boyfriend
what i need is my best friends
girls and guys / exes and fly / babes of the future / celebrated witches / queer/androgynous no /
frontiers / love is / in / between
when i break up with my bf
and i’m driving thru the desert alone
Baltimore Poems
from the street: a wounded howl,
fuck the police and it echoes from the prisons,
fuck the police
the anger which vibrates somewhere low
in their chests, weighted down
by one too many
unwarranted traffic stops
when the tail light
wasn’t out, and the time
they killed that person--
no, not Mike Brown, the other time. no,
Neutral Mice (or Suicides Light As Air)
1.
a bird built a nest
in my grandfather’s
up-turned welding goggles
the day after
he died
I never told
my grandmother
this, but
the dead
are dead
and the living
are dead
and
by August
the nest
was empty
Two Poems
I am not sure
Truly, she was nothing more than just a purse
But when lost, there was a problem
How to face the world without her
Especially
Because the streets remember us together
The shops know her more than me
Because she is the one who pays
She knows the smell of my sweat and she loves it
She knows the different buses
And has her own relationship with their drivers
She memorizes the ticket price
And always has the exact change
Once I bought a perfume she didn’t like
She spilled all of it and refused to let me use it
By the way
She also loves my family
And she always carried a picture
Of each one she loves