Collaborative Poem-Violence in America-Music by Ana Tijoux

-
This is a collaborative poem written and read by writers and poets at Writers On the Air Open Mic, March 24th, 2018. Each writer wrote 1-5 lines with the only connection being the theme-Violence in America. Readers are todd, frederick, susan, pete, katya, and gena.
Music by Ana Tijoux







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I was walking down the national mall in D.C

-
I was walking down the national mall in washington d.c. the other day and i suddenly realized this country is mine more so than theirs, the ones who have money, wealth, and have never suffered the pain of never having enough nor ever looking around and sayingbecause by looking around, at the black wall remembering the dead in vietnam, the world war two memorial, all the buses lined up, arriving and departing, like the body bags wherever they find themselves, tucked in some foxhole, oswampland, thats not your carolinas hometown, man, not deporting, all those veterans, and their families, who may have voted for them, only to keep embracing the sacrifices made, making sure its their country too. But sacrifice and pain isnt the only realixation i felt. Not just the memorials but the ideals represented in the monuments to mlk, jefferson, lincoln, and the museums dedicated to  african americans, native americans, that tell a different story, the story ideals upon which we all have st...
Read more

A General Strike?

-
http://portside.org/2017-02-06/whose-strike THIS IS A GOOD PIECE,  A General Strike?  'GET SOBER FOLKS' . I'm interested in movement organizing strategy... lots of people discussing this topic right now.  If  the 9th Circuit does right, will Trump ignore the decision.....sort of Andy Jackson reborn from the Bank Fight and the Indian cases of the mid 1830s?   I watched the NPR show tonight on the Oklahoma bombing of 1995. Amazing how much force the cops used and the resources they had, which turned them all into boneheads on steroids who drove McVeigh nuts. 168 Dead! The way things are going, that Reichstag moment could come sooner than we may have anticipated.  Labor is too weak in numbers and political strength to lead the United Front, and the broader post Woman's March movement is too inchoate at this point to fully predict how it will emerge?  Yet, I'm optimistic.  I have visited or done a little work with a few different ...
Read more

The Wrong Paths We Take

-
 written 2003 I was in the bathroom and I started Fred Setterberg’s The Road Taken and I felt the twinge of nostalgic time traveling he was rendering on the page and for a moment I wished I could jump in the conversation with my similarly rustic road reminisces. However, once I was done in the bathroom, I wondered whether or not, upon further reading, I was being suckered into denying my past like many post- Sixties tomes seem to blather on about by wishing I had become a Christian, a Hindu or a scientologist, or a businessman, or an earnest entrepreneur, or by wishing I hadn’t wasted my time fucking around with my instincts and had gone on to get my doctorate or even my masters in something beside Anthropology, or wished on myself any other of the jobs my generation finally succumbed to in the name of “survival,” meaning accepting the prevalent middle class Darwinism, giving up entirely and guiltily on the one and only time I cared what happened to anything besides myself. Right...
Read more

The It Person

-
  The Have and Have Nots Never practiced in front of the mirror how to lie or bribe, talk dirty or ascribe to deception, Or what I’d say when I died to make everything fine about what I did Or did not do to make it all right.   If the have nots only want what the haves have in regards to material wealth, then nothing’s changed. If the oppressed only want to be the oppressor then nothing’s changed. If the haves won't share/give to the have nots, then nothing’s changed. There's only so much to go around and too few have too much, many have what they don't need, and too many want what can't be bought and can only be stolen. When will it stop? This merry go round of desperation and greed. My only hope is that somewhere in the world/now a child has been born / who will never bend to old/ never forever be disgraced upon the public stage/ never regret the folly of youth nor the wisdom of old age/ will recant the superiority of race and division of ...
Read more

ALL

-
 all for one, one for all. justice for all freedom and happiness for all all lives matter today, april 19, is another protest, just after a week or two protesting around the country. is it good to keep on reminding each other that we can stop this sinking political juggernaut with vibes? it makes me drowsy just thinking about it. since, i who is in command of what language i can speak, or am I, can i really differentiate between ALL the subtle different renditions of ALL this or ALL that. Its a mystery but what would have happened if someone came out with All Lives Matter before BLM came out with Black Lives Matter or would we all know that ALL didnt mean ALL then any more than it meant ALL back then. if the modern wage slave has to watch the daily celebration of death and dying, the addictions rising, and sexual devolution among those who don't work, it's no wonder they are restless. if those who play without paying respects to those who won't, can't, don't know ho...
Read more

Sex and Violence

-
When you get as close as Him and his fellatio totalitarians are to accomplishing and finishing off any semblance to the New Deal, the old constitution, the new society, and anything else they can get their hands on, you can count on a dreary future, at least until the HOPE of mid-term elections is closer to the drawing board.  Sad that the only HOPE is the slight chance of going backwards to another time when Congress, the lawmaking, budget creating, and war (as will, I suppose, PEACE) making representative of the American people can give up it's Constitutional privileges once again, to the highest bidder. Of course, their hands never get dirty. Free thinking about the war on sexual freedom. Although we all can argue what an adult is and at what magical age, we all become adults, whoops, that's the problem isn't it? Agreement is based not on what may be abuse, such as an age of consent or acceptable age of adulthood or a standard set on positions o...
Read more

Bringing it back home

-
I have liberal friends, or acquaintances who say they speak up when they have to but when it comes to their friends and especially family, they remain quiet in order to maintain "civil". That's what's wrong with freedom of speech, or for that matter, any freedom, even democracy. We either are self-restricting or as in the case of democracy, only gripe if our choices, which have been restricted, are not that satisfying. Freedom of speech also becomes irrelevant at thanksgiving dinners, office water coolers, or in bars and social clubs where dancing or drinking are supreme. Sure, one can make alot of trouble for themselves by utilizing any of the above-mentioned opportunities to rant and rave about what anyone considers grave injustice in the world.  Since people need jobs, it's not too bright to be the only one at your place of work who wants to speak up about injustice. Of course, one can exercise freedom of choice by finding another job or just not working at all...
Read more