Here’s a poem for you about trying to find the language to talk about the world we live in and if that is even possible or worthwhile. In the face of climate disasters, fascism, surveillance Capitalism, ongoing genocide, and indifference in the imperial core, we cannot lose sight of what we are fighting, and how to fight it.
“There will be no need to fear or hope, only to look for new weapons.” -Postscript on the Societies of Control, Gilles Deleuze
My music recommendation for today is Circle Breaker by the Taxpayers
New Weapons
The old poetry injury is flaring up again.
It came to be in the business of knowing
with doors flung wide, accepting what may come
like the knowledge that
if the work is done for glory
none can be received
and that the enemy is all
who would stand in the way of us living a life unalienated
from our bodies
our labor
our kin
our time
and the world.
They are the serious enemies of play. The chokers and baggers of curiosity.
They will be faced with our joy held to their heads until they defect or surrender.
Drum beats beat no marching step,
but wild abandon echoed off the oldest walls
infecting whole towns to lay down labor for arms
aimed at the heart of others
opening fires for passionate embrace.
There are things we can never forget
never unlearn or be overtaught.
Like the comfort of others,
the joy in the dance,
the pulse of the strange,
seeping in through cheaply insulated suburban homes
dripping onto crisply set dinner tables
while we look anywhere else.
The old poetry injury is flaring up again.
A reminder: You fought and fought and lost
and yet the ache means some part
of you remembers holding the stock
of meaning firmly against your shoulder
and it recoiled hard enough
to change you.