An Open Letter to the FBI

Fuck you guys.
Fuck you for Fred Hampton, Leonard Peltier and my friends the 14 (wait now) 19- check that- 23 too many to name that you're after right now. I just wanna know how many times you have directly interfered with peace and justice in this country. I wanna know how many lives...

And I wanna talk about it. I want our stuff back, fuck, I want our spy back. She did the grunt work around here and I've never seen my tax dollars so well spent. I want to talk about your budget, FBI gone unchecked since 9/11. Tailing peace activists just to bill the time and tapping phones and raiding homes...

Looking for what? Proof that we disapprove of this government? Well, we haven't been at all shy about that, have we? We show up on your Capitol lawns with our signs and our banners and our bullhorns and we SCREAM at your buildings, from behind your police lines I- I guess I should feel honored to have this much of your attention.

Tear gas in my eyes and all, those plastic zip-tie handcuffs as they round us up like cattle. And now the heat is really coming down, cause it was never a fair battle. And the Grand Jury inquisition has begun. It's some of that good 'ol fashion McCarthyism except now the red tag term is terrorism. Meanwhile, the real war criminals are accepting awards. Those torturers and wire tappers, patting each others backs at the podium.

Anyway, fuck them.
I came here to talk to you.
To ask what the hell we're ganna do now that they're kicking in doors in dinkytown looking for dissenters. They're taking down posters off the walls, calling it evidence to be used against us and you're next if you don't think so. Anybody left with an opinion. Anybody here consider themselves outspoken?
I am talking to you.

So here's a Quick History Lesson in FBI repression:

John Lennon. They tried to deport him- did you know that?- for speaking out against the war. It was right before the republican national convention of 1972 and Nixon was afraid it was ganna cost him re-election, so they tried to kick him out of the country for having a concert. You see? They were afraid of a concert.

Dr. Martin Luther King's home was raided by the FBI (now we're on to something). He received threats and harassment from them for half his Nobel Peace Prize deserving career, and was in the end assassinated. I read that he was under surveillance when it happened. That undercover police watched from across the street as King was shot. But they couldn't kill the dream he started dreaming and we are still coming ready or not (and I mean ready or not).

So give it up for the RNC8.
We've got a real movement in this state and in case you haven't noticed, it's going on right now. And hold your breath for the peaceful 3 who's reactivated subpoenas are hanging over all our heads. Don't be silent. Tell everyone you can about this!
Go to stopFBI.net and get involved!
Call the president and tell him to call it off.
We said end the war and the witch hunt, defend the first amendment.
Enough is enough!
No more attacks on them,
no more attacks on us.





Get involved: stopFBI.net
antiwarcommittee.org

Eulogy for a giant (old class assignment in which I am to describe a rock)

Jupiter is dead.
In it's final throws, the planet compacted
to the size of a basket ball.
No bounce left though, no, no,
no, it shattered when it fell out of the sky.
The piece I have right from
the Titian's red eye
that infamous storm that swirls
reddest where the damage
is done most. It's deepest hues
like bruises that travel out
in layers like skin, the colors-
brick and mortar.

The smoothness of it's surface is the product of time passing over it's features with a fuzzy memory.
When I hold it in my hand all I feel is gravity.
It should be heavier. It's weight some unknown sum
GAS in the heads of scientists I've never met
but when I dropped it I heard thunder
CLAP into the corners of this mostly
vacant room.

I picked it up and mourned poor Jupiter.
One of our first gods
reduced to a throwing stone.

READ!

Cause it's good for you, like exercise
like oxygen. It's good for you like
sleeping in. And with a good book there
for when you wake
to stimulate your brain.

Read while the rest of you
stays in bed, you and your head can
go off and
see the world,
solve a crime,
learn a language (or just the ways
the one you know can be used).
Read because it enriches you.
Watch how the words
and feelings are infused.
To create an experience.
Something new.

Read. Because information is what you need.
read non-fiction and history and poetry,
read great people's auto-biographies,
read fantasies

JUST READ!

(And vote too, damn it.)

A spell to gather them

Calling all heretics, blasphemers, advocates.
Calling all heroines, witches and miscreants.
Join us in defense
of our right to dissent,
I say WAKE UP
and pay attention to this!



Get involved:
www.stopFBI.net
antiwarcommittee.org

Some real optimism

My my my. That last post is no good. Honestly, I don't know if I can excavate any more old poems. They are all so bitter and without hope. I have done a lot of soul searching and self finding in these last few years and I have turned around on a lot of opinions I used to have about myself and my life. Mostly, I just like myself a whole lot more. I used to live like there was nothing to get up for everyday. It was no fun. When I think about her now (this person I used to be) she scares me. I would not like to meet her on the street. I mean, I would like her to change but she did, I did change.
Anyway, I will probably write over that last post another time. I'm just having trouble because I haven't been able to finish these poems I am working on and I haven't been able to write anything new. Sometime when I can think of better things to say, I will edit that dreary shit out.

Instead, I wanted to tell you I got some new journals today! I ordered them online and just got the package in the mail. I buy my journals directly from the artist who designs them (one Ms. Jill Bliss) and I love,love, love her stuff. Her journals are beautiful (with colorful illustrations of flowers and herbs) and functional (some pages are graph paper, some are lined, some are blank) and she really cares about the environment Plus, my journal's name is Ms. Bliss (how cool is that?) I tell her all the things I want in my world, which is to say: choose bliss. They inspire me to create. I keep one in my purse and carry it with me everywhere I go. I just got four new ones, which should last me at least six months and I'm really happy to have a small pile of something that makes me so happy.
So, more to come! There's been a lot going on for me lately, with the FBI raids of my AWC friends (and our office) and I hope for some trully inspired revolutionary prose soon. Now that I have proper supplies it's time to get writing!

Excavated from my smoking days

The smoke fills my mouth
enters my cavities, my lungs
full of poison. I justify the levels
of contamination by saying
"it's better than this" or "it's
better than that" like a junkie.
But it hits the spot.
A twinge in a long dead limb, a
feeling through the numbness
like a zombie.
I confess to messing around with this
but it's better than
nothing.
Living just gets long anyway,
when really it's quiet short.
We are all on our way somewhere
and this just fills the time.

Grow Tomato

Grow tomato,
grow.
Ripen red in the
sun.
Swell with summer's
heat
and become.

Gulping sunlight
sucking the
dirt dry
limbs hang thick like
loaded guns
tucked into your shoulder to
steady, you
ready,
seeds in the flesh
on a mission.

Grow tomato- you know
your time has come.
Grow until you reach
the place that
each of us
is from.