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| Last night in downtown Portland Oregon |
I used to be a poet.
So I thought.
I impressed the lead beat at the hilltop coffeeshop in Georgetown
Who said he was an atheist, then looked around the room to see who was shocked by his admission
I used to weave words around fingers
around crowds
around music, and in and out of wind gusts, and off of the dark edge of moonlight
And into the deep moorings of judgement
And back again
Proud of my
self
And the looks on their faces when I
breathlessly
spoke the last word
of my poem.
I wasn’t a poet at Stanford.
The poetry teacher, bemused, took wind of my words and took wind from my sails and….
I didn’t fit into the mold.
And yet
That’s what poets are supposed to do, right?
Buck the system
Break the mold
Change the world.
But we didn’t.
It’s twenty years later and here
we are.
In the streets again
chanting
and hoping.
We were fearless then,
we poets.
And now must be again.
The martyrs of that movement...my friends...
it’s as if they were made to be martyrs….
The ones who didn’t make it past the fight
Their names even, stolen from some book of would-be martyrs
Brad Will
Jay Marx
Matt Power
They were people I knew
Among many
Fighting for a better world, a more just, a more equitable place for all.
And they were fighters, we were fighters
I was living my best life then.
The last time I saw Brad we were shouting at cops in New York City.
On the front lines
Always
We saw each other, nodded
Rode off on bikes in different directions
To the next front line of the fight
He to Mexico
Me to Palestine
He met death
I met love
And marriage
And self-sacrifice
And losing the edge
That got duller
Through the years
And Matt.
And Jay.
Were both fighters
Who died young
While they still knew everything.
But I got older.
Wiser?
Or stupider?
When we're eighteen we know everything
And things get less certain from there.
I no longer think I'm a poet.
A fighter?
I don't even dare.
Why do we even need poetry?
If it's not quatrains or sonnets or villanelles
Is it even a poem?
This thrust of danger
Twisting like a knife
A reminder
That poetry is not dead.
And the struggle continues.
Martyrs? There are so many.
Too many to count.
And the struggle continues.
Blood dries on pavement
Senseless deaths
And the poetry dries up
No longer full of life and vigor
Too many martyrs
Too many martyrs
Too many martyrs
The struggle continues.
As do the poems, the lifeblood of our creative energy
Our poetry must be pragmatic now.
It must, brick by brick and word by word, build barricades.
It must be thick, like molasses.
To stick their jackboots to pavement,
To jam their bullets in the barrels so they cannot escape
To kill more of us.
It must be slow, heavy, unyielding. It must be steadfast.
There, through the thickness of this poetry, through the tear gas, in the distance I see us.
Together, in our bright future,
Hand.
In hand.
In hand.