2008

Hey y'all,

So here is my most recent poem of the week. I actually wrote it in 2006 or so... It was pretty cool because I had written it and forgot about it. In 2008 I found it and literally had no recollection writing it. In fact if it wasn't for the fact that it was in my hand writing and exactly the type of thing that I would write, I would have thought someone else wrote it. Anyway I made some adjustments to it at the time and renamed it 2008. I guess I'm just ahead of my time.


2008

It’s been 9 years since Seattle
10 years since Jericho 98
7 years since the killer cops got free from their 41 bullets
8 years since millions screamed brick by brick wall by wall we’re
gonna free Mumia Abu Jamal.

I hope this hiccup of a movement isn’t over
Cops in riot gear, anarchist with bandana’s covering their faces,
People wreckin' shop from San Francisco to Brooklyn
Let me find out that the modern day protest era is already over,
Swallowed up by liberal former peace niks,
With a legitimate war to protest and democrats to endorse,

I remember the streets of Philadelphia during Y2K,
Food not bombs, the three-ring clown circus, and MOVE in Clark Park.
These images stand in contrast to the vote for Kerry pins
Brandished by protesters in NYC 2004
Tell me it’s not over,
Tell me I’m not condemned to here the new rallying cry of the left
“Vote for Hillary”
I don’t want to hear about Supreme Court justices,
And which candidate would send how many troops to war,

I want to hear about class war,
And the poor taking the fight to Greenwich, Connecticut,
to Fifth Avenue,
Taking it to the North Shore of Long Island.

Say it ain’t so.

Please don’t tell me that all I have to be happy about
is the mid-term elections and the hopes that the
lamest political party in history might do something
different than the most sinister one.

Please tell me there is a voice out there that says

Smash the starbucks,
Destroy wal-mart,
And remove the slumlords.
I pray that voice is still alive in the subconscious of our people.
I pray that the propaganda machine of the system has only
Strengthened our convictions.
I pray that this lull in political action is the calm before the storm.

Tell me we are not gonna wait for judges to tell us Mumia is guilty.

Tell me I’m gonna get off my ass and demand that we don’t.

Tell me that I’m not gonna be a lazy leftist waiter, republican hater, policy reforming, peace loving, conflict fearing a-hole.
I can’t take that image of myself.
Please tell me that my current trepidation is grounded by wisdom and sound strategy.
Tell me I’m still gonna fight, die if I have to.
Tell me I’m not so afraid of death that I will accept
This Fahrenheit 451,
big brother watching,
cops searching me for no reason,
Phony, civil liberty violating society.
Tell me I won’t wait for the constitution to save me from the injustices I encounter everyday.

Please don’t tell me I’m gonna miss Sandra Day O’connor.

Cause if that is all I have, than I have nothing.
I have nothing without my unquenchable thirst for liberation.
I am nothing without my unbendable will to overthrow oppression
In all its forms, by any means necessary.
My children will have nothing if they inherit a legacy of capitulation,
An estate of apathy and …
My children don’t deserve a life of wage slavery
in order to buy food, clothes, shelter, gasoline, knick-knacks at the dollar store, ipods, cell phone cameras, 401k, dental insurance, and corner store diets.

My children may have no choice.

But I do.

I can fight to free them from the chains
of the most rotten filthy empire known to humankind.

Or I can die tryin’.

Or I can accept it.
Please tell me I won’t accept it.
But don’t lie to me.

I’d rather accept the truth than believe in a lie.