With A Raised Fist by Joseph Farley

My will cannot be broken,
at least not any more than it already is.
I have the strength of grape soda,
and nearly twice the fizz.
I shall rot your teeth and stain your clothing,
but I shall never yield.
I shall remain forever angry
and yelling at the moon.

Beside Me Are: by Mike Meraz

beside me are:
a pack of pall malls
a pack of black and milds
the heater is running
there is a joy in my heart,
indeed,
but there is also sadness,
there is a great amount of apathy
but there is also care and concern
for others.
you can’t tell me I cannot care for things,
otherwise I’d be unhuman,
there are natural inclinations you have,
that you cannot deny,
just like the fact that you are dying.
there are other undeniable facts as well,
you are living and breathing and you have a heart
and a soul and family, and these things should be cared for.
you have children, maybe and you have a wife, maybe,
and these things should be cared for, there is a cat by your
waist, that is really your child, and this is cared for,
the plight of the underachiever, the fashion of the failure
(and I am not talking monetary or popularity)
is to psychologically remove facts that undeniably exist,
even you will not refute this, denial is more popular than
cocaine.

there is a man at work who thinks he is king,
he runs a little grocery store in the French Quarter and
bullies his employees and makes them feel like shit,
his employees can do nothing save quit, but times are hard
and sometimes you have to make a choice between food and
rent and a little sucking in of your pride, you take the food
and rent because you are human and have to come home to
feed all those things you love.

life is not a computer screen, life is not a philosophy.

there is goodness in the walk to work,
there is goodness in the drive around town,
there is freshness of air,
there is the beautiful girl with long hair
who actually has something intelligent to say,
who approaches life in a real way,
who is not actually a dumb bitch,
there are these things, I find them,
I find them not often,
but they are there.

the past has been good,
the past has been bad,
but we can’t pre-lay our foundation before us
with mines and traps,
too many are doing it for us already,
politicians, social governments, the police,
the hood down the street looking for the next hustle.

Occupy by Paul Bach

From a voice
for decades
declaiming
REVOLUTION
is the only answer,
I’m with you

Calmer heads prevail
peaceful gatherings
coast to coast
and rising
nation to nation,
I’m with you

From miles and continents away
yet by your
side,
I’m with you

Ninety-nine is more
than one
and always will be

With a Guy Fawkes mask
in one hand,
I’m with you

With the shade of Thoreau
and a copy of “On Civil Disobedience”
in the other,
I’m with you

“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
MLK, join hands
I’m with you

Readings on site
all over the country
of Ginsberg’s “America”
resurrect his spirit,
I’m with you

The creaking of branches
a low rumble is heard
exhaling through the leaves
the voice of Whitman
echoes off the buildings
the trees, the hills
I’m with you

I’m with you.

Three poems by Lynne Hayes

suislide

capital hill is leaning
toward
sidewalk cracks
that hold garbage
from the stooges
who shoved hope
down a drain
while
paris, lisbon
and cheetahs
on a serengeti
shake their head
for they can see
that Rome burns
and all we have
is a  kinked water hose.

____________

Revolution was about pussy by Mark James Andrews

Revolution was about pussy
more pussy
strange pussy
better drugs
more drugs
a free spot to crash

All night strategy sessions
Mao’s red book
working Che into the conversation
nodding to the awful obvious music
these rituals were to be practiced
to be endured.

The worst were the mass movements
the tribal gatherings
sit-ins were preferable
to the awful marching
the signs and slogans
chanting in unison.

And now wandering this Occupation
Grand Circus Park in the 3-1-3
faces are again young & sensual
slumming & kinky in tent city
a new wisdom permeates
ignore organization
abandon philosophy.

A sleeping bag is hung in the wind
bodily fluids are drying
a young male in a Sherpa hat
sidles up to a young female
bowing to cell phone texting
silently weighing his chances.

Together by Len Kuntz

Encircled
we hold hands
and sing
our voices rising
with white breath
hot as flames
toward a certain heaven.
Tomorrow
long after Christmas has passed
we will still be here
praising peace
and goodwill toward men.
We will
carry each other on our backs
build a final fortress
or fill the hollow mouths of our brethren
but what we will not ever do is
stop proclaiming
what is
and what should be.

Wall Street by Donal Mahoney

Like the poor, the comfortable
you will always have with you.
They hold good jobs, then

get better ones. Like coyotes
they grin and walk slowly
in circles. They hire,

even fire each other.
They wed their own kind
and selectively proliferate.

Theirs is a constant harvest.
Their voices are a sediment,
thickening on everything.

The Company by David S. Pointer

The company
has announced
cutbacks on
anniversary
coffee mugs, and
employees, it’s
debatable
whether there
will be future
funding for
those antique
begging dog
buttermilk mugs
either as you
wonder about
extreme profits,
realizing the
next election
cycle is going
to bring those
slender cardboard
silhouette cutouts
of the candidates
that pummel the
mind like bare
knuckled boxing
posters

Under The Hunger Moon by R.M. Engelhardt

In early evening,
Jupiter in the sky,
Hunger moon tonight.

Where
The wolves
Of wall street
“Prey”
Upon
Each generation
Under any
Name
Monarch or
King, Politician
Or snake.
For history
Just seems to be
And never change
A wolf, a dog
Chasing it’s own tale
Into devestation
“Greed”
In early evening,
Jupiter in the sky,
Hunger moon tonight.
As all the people,
Tents are forced
To leave
With their statements
&
Beliefs.
And yet?
Who ever said
That
Life,
This world
Or universe
Was ever
Fair?
In early evening,
Jupiter in the sky,
Hunger moon tonight.
Where we all starve
For a better way,
A better life.
Usually realizing
The fates of Rome
&
Our kind
Far Far
Too late.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME by Ray Foreman

W.G. Wells wrote the book,
a movie with Raymond Massey followed
in the thirties.
Some things anchor in my mind for years.

These last months, on TV, I see it
in their faces, there seems to be a joy
in the way they swing their batons
in Oakland, in Liberty Park, especially
in Chicago at the unarmed protesters
who refuse to fight back.
No difference men, women, young people,
older people.
Chicago in 1968, same difference.

They call themselves, “police” as if
the word excuses their behavior
and gives their brutality justification.

* * *

In a small rented conference room in
the Regis Hotel on Clark Street
he was one of the few 1930s socialists
still alive.|
He speaks to an audience of 36, mostly
older people who came to hear what he says
will be his last speech.
The audience, what once were in the hundreds,
has evaporated.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” a woman, probably in
her late seventies, asks. It is more a statement
than a question.

“Pretty much for a lot of people,”
the speaker replies, “not all, but for many.
Back in 1938 we never figured the good
days of the twenties would ever come back.
Then came the war, people had jobs
and those we called poor,
rose from destitution and utter poverty.
Mostly I saw that ordinary people
were able to send their children to college
and rise above their prewar stations.

“My grandfather saw the power
of wealth rising after the Civil War,
and is still rising.
He didn’t say it but I am,
that because  the country is divided
into powerful separate states that vie
for political and economic power,
and religious power and recognition
unlike that of European Nations,
our elected leaders have other things
on their minds other than the citizenry.

“I’m not sure how right he was when
he said there may come a time when
most people will swim in the current.
Those who can’t swim will drown and
that will be accepted as normal.”

A much older man stood up.
“Nature has a way of evening things out.
Things are happening, climate change,
breathing air is polluted,
water in many places isn’t fit to drink
unless it’s doctored.
Then, and it’s possible like
the 1918 flu epidemic, millions died
all over the world.
And maybe the new epidemics will be
man made like EMF waves
from WIFI and cell phones.
And of course, a nuclear screw up in New York
City like the one in Japan?”

The meeting broke up at 9 PM.
A new recently passed law required
gatherings of more than ten people
to disband at 9 PM.