We refuse to be ICED into silence
In memory of Malcolm X, Mehdi Ben Barka, Amilcar Cabral, Agostinho Neto, Kwame Nkrumah and Che Guevara and Refaat Alareer – on this 60th anniversary of the Tricontinental Conference
there is this idea
in our midst
that internationalism
is the stuff of poetry and all that
and if practiced
would deplete us
i am an elder born
on the international front
and studied there
and this is what i have to
add
as a comrade
to the conversation
international work
is the opposite of poetic:
it is risky
and
it is deadly
but
it is strategic
i remember
as if it were yesterday
my husband and i
saying good-bye
to Malcolm X
who had lunch with us
in Accra, Ghana
only to return
to the US of A
to be gunned down
had Malcolm stayed
in the belly of the beast
had he not gone
to the Organization of African Unity
to demand our human rights
had he not met
with liberation movement leaders
in our Mother Africa and the third world
and then returned
he may well still be among us
imperialism
dares seize
the right to international wars
while
not using poetic metaphors
to target
those among us
who revendicate
international revolution
and
those who fight our internationalist unity
also fear the magic
of poets who know how to fly the kites
of their words
high above
the balkanization of borders
and so
they too are assassinated
this year
is the 60th anniversary
of the Tricontinental Conference
where Che Guevara spoke
in front of
the whole freedom fighting world –
Che who was shot dead
in Bolivia
far away from Cuba
i remember
that Mehdi Ben Barka
the radical opposition leader
to the regime
of corrupt Moroccan King Hassan the second
never arrived for the Tricontinental in Havana
because he was kidnapped in Paris
with the help of French mercenaries
dismembered
and dissolved
in a bath of acid
no,
internationalism
never was a poetic walk in the park
never was a lark –
it is bloody
and
it is dark
with sometimes poetry
keeping a thread of hope
above the water mark
i remember
Amilcar Cabral and Agostinho Neto
both of whom I was honored to serve
while Kwame Nkrumah was still in power –
they were internationalists to the core
and if they wrote poetry
it was to let us know
like Mumia Abu Jamal writes behind bars
that liberation is an idea
that has no borders
that there is no Apartheid
between the voiceless
and
that counted together
wherever we may be
we are an overwhelming majority
the life
of international freedom fighters
is written
yes, in poetry sometimes,
with
the pain and blood
of each and everyone of us
(c) Julia Wright February 2, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
Salt melts ICE everywhere
To the legions of our children who are becoming political prisoners
“the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned”
Yeats. The Second Coming.
“Oh , our Minneapolis, I hear your voice crying through the bloody mist”
Words on a sign carried at the January 31st anti ICE protest in Milan, Italy
in Gaza
a little girl
fills a plastic jug
with the salty water
she will drink
unto sickness
and death
in Minneapolis
her international minded twin
writes in a letter to ICE:
i think you should make friends
with the world
on the other side of a world
she has not yet visited,
in Milan, Italy
the salt of the earth
protests loudly
against the presence of ICE
at their Winter Olympics
to ensure Marco Rubio’s
and
J.D. Vance’s
personal security
in the belly of the beast
infants
can be political prisoners
even before they understand
the meaning of the term
in the belly of the beast
a ten year old
wise to internationalism
even before she has crossed the Atlantic
writes to ICE
I think you should make friends
with the world
(c) Julia Wright February 7, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
Show the body of the book
throughout the land
books are being arrested
and thrown
in the darkness of the dungeons
of manufactured oblivion
a book is a body
of written integrity
of testimony on paper
of our voices carrying on
where we cannot go
and
after we are gone
show
the body of the book
that we may know
it is whole
not dis-membered
bring forth the shackled body
of the book
as we affirm
the right to touch its skin
of paper,
the blood
of its ink
while we read it
in the same light of day
that made the tree
it came from
grow
show
the body of the book –
show that it is alive
and breathing
and human
show
the body of the book –
for each book
taken away
from us
there is writ of Habeas Corpus
(c) Julia Wright. February 18, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
Beware of tech oligarchs bearing jokes
We’re doing it … We’re doing it …
and I’m sure you’re enjoying it as much as I am.
Alex Karp, founding CEO of Palantir
…and what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born
W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming
when a CEO of Palantir
says he dreams
of drones
spraying his critics
with fentanyl laced urine,
you are meant to laugh
but take him at his word,
he is telling us he is doing it
he is already doing it –
he is selling worldwide
his crowd control
Palestinian-tested drones
spraying the bio weapons
that are patented and advertised
to enable a genocide
and
he lets us know
he applauds
those flooding Gaza
with illicit narcotics
hidden
in bags of bug-infested flour
take their jokes
literally
their grinning jokes
their red-lipped
serial killer jokes
dead seriously
it is when
they laugh
and joke
that they reveal
the bottomless hole
in their soul
the more clownish they are
the darker is the truth
they no longer bother
to hide
thoroughly enjoying himself
high on his own instant fix
of chemically enhanced hubris
as he bounces up and down
irrepressibly
a jack way outside of his box,
he proclaims
when it’s necessary
we scare enemies
and on occasion kill them
and we hope you are in favor of that
besides himself with orgiastic pleasure
manically tearing off his human mask
he licks with relish
from his beast-like chops
the blood
of the taxpayer dollars he sucks up
of the income taxes he does not pay
of the multi billion profits
that like life-sustaining organs
he is harvesting
from us
he is part of a dying species
we refuse to protect
he is part of a terminally ill class
no hospice will have room for
when the sun these predators fear
rises
and floods their malevolence
with light,
when they slink back to their boxes
to sleep off their last orgy –
we, who do not laugh,
we, who get up early
we, who own the secret to long haul sobriety
we, who have steady calloused hands
we who refuse to be iced into silence
we will find the stake of Resistance
to drive through
their absent hearts
(c) Julia Wright. February 21, 2026. All Rights Reserved.
