LEONARD PELTIER, FOR THIS WE THANK YOU

when you were
in the dark steel and concrete belly
within the belly of the beast
caged in the hole
for days without a glimpse of sun
for nights without a glimpse of dawn
the suffering was so dehumanizing
you told us you feared
you would forget who you were –
so you wrote your name
on a slip of toilet paper
to hide under your pallet

Leonard,
you taught us never to lose
our identity
in the fight
to always remember
where we come from ancestrally
spiritually
historically
racially
as family
and witnesses bearing testimony
for those to come

for this we thank you

Leonard,
you are a force of nature
who taught us to respect
and ally with
Mother Earth
who is a liberation movement
rebelling with her mega storms
against corporate climate change

for this we thank you

Leonard,
you taught us that each political prisoner
is a colonial land
to be freed
and
no colonized prisoner will be free
unless
all of them are

for this we thank you

Leonard
you taught us that Time is both
short
for those who can’t breathe
and long
for those who like you
still resist
with the fibre of every sacred word
every prayer, every dance
every color painted
every tribal people loved
every Indigenous child playing
in the gentle wind
of Hope
you offered him

for this we thank you.

Reprinted with the courtesy of the Official Leonard Peltier Support Committee

A TALE OF TWO CHILDREN

enter into the twenty first century
the child
from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale
and he addresses
the children in Gaza:
” what was Elon Musk wearing
in the Oval Office
when he visited Trump there?”

the Gaza choir answers :
“No neck tie
or suit that we could see,
no White House prescribed attire”

so, the timeslip child concludes
“he was naked”

then the proverbial child
asks the Palestinian children:
“if you were in the Oval Office
what would you say
instead
of an entitled kid your own age,
little X,
shushing the President
and telling him
to go away
to make room
for Papa Musk
the real Emperor?”

replied the youthful Palestinian choir:
“Maria Hanoun
has expressed it already
and we say it again:
let Mr. Trump
and all the members of MAGA
be expelled
to China
and then ask them
how they survived it ”

never
little X
the pampered golden child
and
Maria
the tiny malnourished survivor
shall meet
but
their words –
silexes rubbed together –
spark
a class struggle vision
of the genocidal war

GAZAWOOD

uncle donald
always so thrifty
realized he lost
Hollywood
when
to disappear the fires
he said were caused
by a DEI hoax
he flicked his magic switch
announcing
“lo and behold
here is Water” –
but
there were only
more gallons lost

uncle donald
is desperately
in search
of a new playboys’ ground
where the film industry
will continue
to be the second imperial export
after weapons
down by an oil and gas-rich sea

but
like the gallons he wasted
his dreams
of a Gazawood
will sink
too

KEEPING LOVE ALIVE

in the war
for abolition
there are daily casualties

and it is when
we are bent
over the graves
of our dead
that the state’s deadly lightning
strikes again
and
again

the absence of
of a spiritual presence
is a magnet
drawing
thunder to our side

all we seek
is in our midst
a humane human
a wounded healer
to lead our chants –
a go-between with
the ancestors
to help us redeem loss
when
we are toiling
to free those captured
and
to keep
each day that passes
Love alive

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

LEONARD PELTIER, FOR THIS WE THANK YOU | A TALE OF TWO CHILDREN | GAZAWOOD | KEEPING LOVE ALIVE

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright