Poets against the machine

it is said
there is a plan
for humans to become
robots

slowly
according to the calculations
of algorithmic lobotomy
l should become a robot

but as I see it
robots cannot write poetry
because they cannot feel
so let’s all become
poets against the machine

THE MANY MESSAGES OF A SINGLE FLAME – a secular prayer

Lighting a candle today for the anniversary of George Jackson’s murder and for so many more reasons we find to be interrelated …

September 4th, my father’s birthday, will be honored by a commemoration of his haiku, an inhalation and exhalation of a few syllables as they are blown out …like the candles of his last birthday

i bought
a pillar candle
today
and placed it
on my window sill
as a beacon
not only to Freedom in distress
but
as one of many lights
in the storm
for loved ones
seeking their way

one candle held steady
is enough to light up
the darkness
when we stumble
close to the abyss:

there is
the loss today
of a brother
connected to the sister
who became an ancestor
yesterday

and
then also
civil disobedience for Gaza
somewhere
but we still don’t know
if there were any arrests

and
the same day
the commemoration
of the assassination
of a beloved political prisoner
who warned us
two generations ago
that fascism had come to stay

and
right around the corner
the birthday of a father
who is no longer in the room
to blow out
with his last breath
the syllables of the haiku fire
he lit

and
always that awareness
that some of us
may be too far away
to do anything
except study,
write and pray

a lit candle
connects the dots
between today’s blind spots
and tomorrow’s x-ray –
what lies in between
is a gentle moving sheen

a single candle
can send
in trembling chiaroscuro hand
syllable upon syllable,
name upon name,
many messages
in many tongues
to many spaces
throughout time

a single candle
can honor an ancestor
and like moths
our children
will be attracted
to its flame

and
those flery dances
performed
by one frail flickering light
call back to life
legions of our dead
to walk alongside
our living

and
at wick’s end
when the dying flame sizzles
light can be rekindled
with another candle
and another
and another –
an infinity of chances …

RACHEL’S ARRIVAL

To my late sister, Rachel Wright

” Against a Loveless World”
Susan Abulhawa

it has been two years
and i know
you have at last
arrived

and i know
you do not pine
for the things
you owned

you do not miss
the presence of your Buddha
replica
or
the view
from your Boulevard Saint Germain
apartment
over century old cobblestones

you are no longer
trapped
behind the glass
of my photo
nor is your face
stained sepia

you dance free
and you have rejoined
those who like you
loved too much
in a loveless world

A KITICIDE TOO?

To Refaat Alareer

To Vijay Prashad who wrote: ” The Kite has No Passport”

The most wanted child killer
in the world
stated the other day
a child flying a kite
is an act of war

his minister of national security
calls for 30 to 40 children
a day
to be killed
in the West Bank

and the delusional arithmetic is :
if one child flying a kite
is an act of war –
then let’s erase
at least 30 times more children
every 24 hours
multiplied by as many days
as it takes
to create a childless world

half of the nearly 400 children
in Israeli prisons
are being tortured
with no charges
except
that at some point surely
flock cameras will show
that childhood is a group conspiracy
flying kites
which is an act of war

any child
in Palestine
free or jailed
can be dog-raped
because the whole point
is to criminalize the innocence
with which
they fly their kites

but the children
undeterred
keep on flying their kites
higher and higher
past the Iron Dome
to where Refaat Alareer
still writes

Fighting Words

Journal of the Communist Workers league

Poets against the machine | The many messages of a single flame – a secular prayer | Rachel’s arrival | A kiticide too?

Poems by renowned Black leader and activist Julia Wright