When the Message is Right
by ANDY SMOLSKI
A voice doesn’t always need a mouth
A tongue, saliva, a voice box
Words can be put anywhere
Not just on a page
Resonation is in the mind
Tone
Beat
Sound
Created from sight
People from the bottom know this
Have known it
Reclaiming what was never theirs
But always truly theirs
A wall
A piece of concrete
Bricks
Wood
Glass
Material of a built environment
Really, it is all just a canvass
Really, it never has an “owner”
Whatever the hell that is
Or who
And that’s what’s right
Because, don’t you know
Anywhere is proper
For a message
Well needed to be heeded
Even if it’s just scribbled with a shitty can of spray paint
It is a “fuck you”, I can speak!
We can speak!
We have a message that ain’t well crafted
Not put through focus group studies
So you know it ain’t a lie
Cause it ain’t pretty
A sorta, kinda done the best we could
Done all sloppy
Probably by some old lady, maybe 80
On her way home after another 80 hour day
Picks up some black and scrawls on the wall
“Capitalism is inhumane”
So open your eyes and see past the billboards
Cast a glance to the streets and recognize they speak
And not in hieroglyphs
At least, not for us
We, who the message is for
Simple
Powerful
All kinds of twisted
Packaged in a way we can all understand
Disparaged as graffiti
But really the truth
One said invisibly
Misunderstood
‘Cause, we speak, but never spoke
The writing
It’s on the walls
For the message folks
It’s aimed at you
16 Instructions
by ANDY SMOLSKI
Walk to the corner of Hillsborough and Chamberlain
Bring a sturdy crate
Place crate on sidewalk
Stand on crate
Open book
Turn to page 14
Begin to read aloud
“The First International was the last attempt to realize the solidarity of the species…”
Continue to read louder and louder
“Then, the Spanish civil war aroused this solidarity, which is the driving power of liberation…”
As the crowd draws in, continue unashamed on to page 15
“to drive the class struggle to the point at which the system itself would be at stake…”
Stop
Step down
Grab the crate
Walk away
Andrew Smolski is a now-and-then contributor to CounterPunch.
When Kathy Kelly Went to Jail
by GARY CORSERI
When Kathy Kelly went to jail,
the land of the free, home of the brave
bent out of shape over deflated footballs;
O’Reilly railed at one of his guests
who dared to suggest that “American Sniper”
was not a really, really good show;
“black ice” blanketed Texas to New England
as 16-wheelers careened and caromed,
haphazardly killing all the way home.
She had tried to deliver:
a loaf of bread
and a letter
to Whiteman Air Force base
requesting they stop sending their drones
over the heads of Afghan kids
(and everyone else for that matter!).
A little past 60, small, with features chiseled
by wind and her will, she has lost count
of numbers assigned to her,
prison food regurgitated, times being ill,
for protesting wars for the sake of the children—
white, black, red, yellow, brown–
all her pretty ones,
forsaken by men pushing buttons in bunkers
at Whiteman or elsewhere;
in serpentine caverns, winding under
Pennsylvania Avenue;
or in boardrooms in London…
haphazardly killing all the way home.
“The mind-forged manacles” Blake wrote about
are what she’s standing fast against—
this wind-chiseled, Irish-Catholic girl,
who took Christ’s messages to heart:
to feed the multitudes with Truth;
to suffer for the sake of it;
to alleviate the suffering
so loaves and fishes multiply.
She cannot help but see
the commonality of life:
a kid walking down a street
in Ferguson, Missouri,
or Kabul, or Fallujah, or Gaza–
walking in a sniper’s crosshairs,
slipping on black ice.
The “summer soldiers and
sunshine patriots”
send boys and girls to kill for them—
other people’s boys and girls.
Ranters rant about 100-year wars,
“bad guys and good guys”
(like children playing video games);
billionaires cavort on multi-decked yachts
while the masses rot under chem-trailed skies;
puffer-fish generals, medals galore,
parade for more money (always more)
before a Congress of stooges
in on the take.
Media meatheads and celebrity clowns
preen for the cameras,
take selfies of grinning,
pancake-make-up faces.
Kathy Kelly, 04971-045, at FMC Lexington–
more than a number stapled to a file;
more than a cog in a Chaplinesque movie,
won’t keep the flywheel grinding
the better angels of our nature down;
she dares to see things as they are
(and ask, “Why?”).
Dares to see things as they still might be
(and ask, “Why not?).
Against tentacled and prying darkness, she
whispers to the crying child: “We are here”;
stands fast, and tells a mortified Authority:
“We are one with those who share
the morsels of our shared humanity–
the leavened loaves of love.”
Kathy Kelly is the co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has traveled to Iraq and Gaza during wartime–to bear witness and give comfort. The author of Other Lands Have Dreams (Common Courage Press), she has been arrested more than sixty times at home and abroad, and written of her experiences among targets of U.S. military bombardment and among inmates of US prisons. In December, 2014, she was sentenced to 90 days in federal prison after she and Georgia Walker had attempted to deliver a loaf of bread and a letter to the commander of Whiteman Air Force base, asking him to stop his troops from piloting lethal drone flights over Afghanistan from within the base. She began serving her sentence on January 23, 2015. (info@vcnv.org) …
Gary Corseri has published poems, fiction and articles at Counterpunch, Redbook Magazine, The New York Times, Village Voice and hundreds of periodicals and websites worldwide. He has published 2 novels, 2 collections of poetry and a literary anthology (edited). His dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library. He has taught in public schools, universities and prisons. Contact: gary_corseri@comcast.net.
Editorial Note: (Please Read Closely Before Submitting)
Poets Basement is now on Facebook. Find us as http://www.facebook.com/poets.basement.
To submit to Poets Basement, send an e-mail to CounterPunch’s poetry editor, Marc Beaudin at counterpunchpoetry@gmail.com with your name, the titles being submitted, and your website url or e-mail address (if you’d like this to appear with your work). Also indicate whether or not your poems have been previously published and where. For translations, include poem in original language and documentation of granted reprint/translation rights. Attach up to 5 poems and a short bio, written in 3rd person, as a single Word Document. Expect a response within two months (occasionally longer during periods of heavy submissions). Submissions not following the guidelines may or may not receive a response.
Poems accepted for online publication will be considered for possible inclusion of an upcoming print anthology.
For more details, tips and links to past installments, visit http://crowvoice.com/poets-basement. Thanks!
