[I wrote these two poems over the last couple of years and included them in my chapbook, Time’s Arrow. The book is available for $5 plus shipping. Send me a message if you are interested — Lew Rosenbaum]
Independence Day
i don’t know what to tell you
The cover art for the chapbook Time’s Arrow is from a denim construction by Diana Berek
about independence day
here in the you ess of A
my blue-eyed boy
my green haired girl,
independent from whom and for what
surely not from the corporations
for which we slave
or from the overseers who
happily expelled us from our
gainful employment
so we can dance forever
in the graveyard of jobfullness
gnawing on bones scraped
from the dumpster where we
dive and drink the contents of
half empty coke cans
and catch a few winks
before the copper taps us
on the toes and tells us to move on
or chokes us for selling loose squares
what can I tell you about sitting
hat in hand in front of the food emporium
i want to give you good counsel
but all i can think of is to
urge you to take what you need
but I know that while capital
takes what it wants
without a thought
you will wind up in solitary
for dreaming of the steak in the cold case
or even a bag of chicharrones
to munch on
with a cold old English gurgling down the throat
on a hot, windless summer day
the aroma of the barbecue
pulled pork or ribs
smothered in sweet baby ray
streaming from the park
on cool lake breezes
drives you to a frenzy
so what can you be independent of
my green eyed boy
my blue haired girl
without taking over the
whole mother fucker
and making it ours
Cooperation Day
I’m not sure about this independence thing any more.
Independence is overrated.
National or individual I mean.
It’s what I was told I needed to be ever since I was very young.
I wanted to be independent of my parents
I ran away from home as far away as I could get
And now my children, as they too struggle for independence
Come back and back again
And only part of it is because the safety net has shredded
But this independence thing doesn’t even work for nations any more.
You can Brexit as much as you want but you can’t disentangle yourself
From your neighbors
Those who struggled for independence in the hallowed 1960s
Find the tentacles of imperialism bind tighter
Even if they are coated with sugar
And while I sit alone in my apartment
Eating my salad and drinking Dos Equis
I tip my cap to the farm workers of Sinaloa
The Cuauhtemoc brewery workers in Monterrey
The timber workers of the Pacific Northwest,
Maybe they were Wobblies from Everett or Centralia,
Who cut the wood that made my table,
And even more these days
The silicon valley upstarts whose robotics produce everything
Including the Japanese car I drive
The shirt all the way from Cambodia clinging to my back
The lettuce from Salinas
Obliterating jobs, but not the need for real, creative work.
Don’t we need a new holiday that celebrates our
Interconnectedness, interdependence?
The way we relate to each other
The way we could take care of each other
Call the day “everybody eats day,”
Call it “Big Rock Candy Mountain Day,”
Call it the day we abolish money and jobs
And celebrate work and contribution
Call it cooperation day.
