New poem by Dee Allen

STAY SILENT

                 For Lean-Lynn Plante, Matt Duran and Katie Olejnik

You're the latest
Catch in the federal dragnet
To your dismay.
You're summoned before
A cold, insinuating
Set of faces.
Take a seat
On the stand
And you're welcomed
Like the worst possible criminal.

Barrage of questions
Fly at you
Rapid-fire in
These secret proceedings.
Seated target has
No line of defence:
Barristers aren't allowed.
Witnesses are forbidden.
So you do
What heart advises:

Stay silent.

Summoned before the
Grand accusers again.
Take a seat and
Be a target again.
Barrage of questions
Dead aim again.
Probing for names
And certain identities
Familiar to you.
Digging for weakness
Gripping fear
On your part.
The accusers
Count greatly on your
Capitulation, cooperation,
Collaboration and implication
Of nearest & dearest.
And you choose again to

Stay silent.

Taciturn rebel
Charged with contempt
By a jury of no peers.
You feel nothing
For the court
But contempt.
As your punishment,
Buried alive
In grey concrete,
Reinforced steel,
Digital locks, alone.
Even this
Won't loosen your lips
Make you
Breathe a word
Whole sentences and
Destroy a community.
To do so would
Help out the witchfinders.
We know how that shit worked for
Early Massachusetts
Puritan culture.

There'll be no
Drownings or hangings.
Not on your watch.
Keep those lips sealed.
You saw nothing.
You heard nothing.
You breathe nothing.
The quiet can be powerful.
Stay silent.
___________________
W: 10.16.12

new poem by brigade member John Curl

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

an exploitation of human labor business

a looking out for number one business

a make your pile and get out business

a boss order abomination business

a whatever the market will bear business

a cheat lie steal business

a do what you're told or else business

a degradation inflation depression toxic wastes business

a hemorrhoids beat your best friend business

a draft plutonium gangster business

an atomic dust imperial world war three business

a business as usual business

where is the honesty of penguins?

where is the justice of sunrise?

must free people be prepared to sleep as well

in garages, under bushes or in dreams?

even at this moment the boardmembers meet

in the condemned sewer to divide our livers

into exacting shares, sealing the fate

of munition profits on

our ability to have children

a rapture stars tumble along your spine business

a fields of orange poppies spread their knees to the mountains of your eyes business

a mass demonstration rubbed with alchemical smoke business

a conch shells withdrawing energy from stuffed ballot boxes business

a lifting the consecrated picket line to the east business

a boycott all businesses business

a submachineguns melt in cops screaming hands business

a collectivizing your boss' business business

an abolishing business

a taking care of business

New poem by jimmy.mankind

 the beach the sea

The old man strewn prone upon a green blanket when we arrived.   I’d say 11, she 11:30.

She, Marie, a meticulous clock, a camera, voice recorder meme artist supreme, was correct.

The sun-baker began making for us croissants of our bodies.

Avoiding a death wish, small scale, pain at least: at 12 we oiled each other.  At 12:15 the old man rose and waddled w/ gritty determination  was it determinism?

into the older, colder sea

I casually observed at 1^st a brave ol’ soul. 

Then a start, while he drove himself relentlessly into the oncoming waves as if he was wading to Japan.   You can walk out here a quarter mile before you have to jump for air.

A refrigerator, probably from Fukushima, glided by him inbound.  It stuck, sunk dumbly into the sand, tired-as-work from the battering trip

(excessive  agitation for a fridge).

It wormed into the sand and began to wriggle into its new continent with each thrusting undulation of its odd friends: the currents, tides, and myriad procrastinations of the sea.

The old man shrank to a mere head-bulb   bobbing alone past the easy shore-breakers.   He was approaching the big ones out past the flats before the solitary floating surfers.   He was their guest now.

You gasped.

“Get him!”  You said firmly.

I grimaced. 

I did not want to tell you this in your innocence:  “Darling.  There are 3 types of people, besides the one type you are.  There are the losers, the winners, and their thugs.   Which is he?”

You hit me.

“Save him!” you commanded.

I remember looking at you as at a goddess, #8886 of the Upper 10,000.  

Prosperity.   Luck.

I rose and started out to sea.

I could barely see him plowing ahead--away--from the swells which rose up like whales beneath my icy belly.

OK.  I’d told you.

But i was not.

i wanted to be with you forever…so bad i left you for Japan.

So bad i left You for japan.

---o---

This is the poem I would have read to you so many times before the times when I was hurt and could not think of it within my pain, which was busily teaching me another poem a song of longing to be whole and free/i think now. 

i forget more now.  marie

i know i am too tired to reach japan.

i cannot even see the old man’s head any more.

This is my attempt—a dream of mine as i go now--out to sea as you suggested—to write the very best poem I ever could--so heavy yet so light upon the wings of a swimmer--ever written…as time floats perfectly…

To give to you.

i realize now, how, i barely, if ever did, faintly, know you…

me…

the cold old man,  his green blanket.

the beach.

the sea.

Marie…

This is the best day of my life.

©  jimmy.mankind@gmail.com

new poem by Melba Abela

Vertical Judgment,
San Francisco 2012

somebody's mother
sister
holding an empty cup
at a street corner on
Van Ness and Market

somebody's father
brother
rummaging a trash can
by the bus stop at
Union and Laguna

did you see that
did you see that
it makes you puke
remembering
the blessedness
of the biblical poor
publicly gleaning
in humble sackcloth

but this is America
you said
that poor man
has a cell phone
that poor woman
has a tv in her room
even genius Einstein
did not own
a cell phone and
magnate Henry Ford
never had
a color tv

poverty in 2012 USA
a huckster’s joke
in an abundant land
of big moneybags
and bigger next social
media money-making
schemes


and so you turn
your fresh face away
annoyed that they are
littering your designer
pup’s view
standing sitting lying
in your space (on your
way to that new
fusion restaurant
or that fancy dog spa)


a public place
you paid for and
worked for with
government propped
low taxes while the
prodigals only wait and
wait as you salivate
religiously at the altar of
the ballooning bull
in our sinned
city of brotherly love.


Copyright ©2012 Melba Abela

new poem by brigade member John Curl

AMERICAN OVERTURN

 

Overturn a brand new leaf

leaf through a dog-eared book

book the d.a. for felony graft

graft a plum branch onto a peach root

root out the causes of social strife

strive toward revelatory visions

envision the end of bureaucratic dictators

dictate a hundred songs about love

love the work you live

live for wholeness and light

light the fires of forgiveness

forgive the failings of your parents

parent your children to interconnections

interconnect compassion to your world

world consciousness overturns.

Over turning privatized commons

spurning career politicians

churning ownership patents

burning corporate papers

turning over unjust laws.

Now all things American overturn.

 

Seamstresses unravel socks

carpenters nail their hammers

omelets flip themselves over

houses balance on their roof ridges

tree roots stretch into the air

cumulous clouds billow into back yards

senior execs pull each others’ comb-overs

FBI agents bug each others’ phones

patrol officers club each other over the head

incumbent officeholders change their names

the president’s cabinet put on false mustaches

Chamber of Commerce stuffs a brown paper bag

Secretary of the Interior hides in the closet

head of the SEC slips through the airport in drag

board chairmen arrive in the Cayman Islands

all the payoffs of all the corporate lobbyists

can’t buy a jelly sandwich

citizens declare the two-party system under

arrest for impersonating democracy.

Over turning privatized commons

spurning career politicians

churning ownership patents

burning corporate papers

turning over unjust laws.

Now all things American overturn.

 

 

 

New image-poem by Melba Abela

new poem by brigade member Carol Denney

The Worst Opera


my fifteenth court appearance
was like watching
the worst opera ever produced
the worst libretto
with the worst timing
the most boring costumes
the most terrible singers
no harmony
no instruments
a lot of whispering
the paper rustling was
louder than the actors
the audience was only waiting
for their small part to be over
and then one by one
they would leave


Carol Denney  6/8/2012