“As soon as the TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) is named (represented, mediated), it must vanish, it will vanish, leaving behind an empty husk.” ~ Hakim Bey
I
sleeping on stone
the very bone permeated by earthen chill
even through layers
and layers
we celebrate the Awakening
long overdue
eyes open
4 am hike to mcdonald’s
incidental corporate sponsor
of the new Revolution
providing the only Free bathrooms
for the masses
then back to cold comfort
and middle of the night discussions
of Transformation and Insurgency
and Peaceful Revolt
the Spring of our Passion
Zings among the glass-walled canyons
reverberates through the subconscious
of the never sleeping City
and pierces the Morning
of the american fall
sunlight now slanting
through the sheltering trees
of Liberty Square
it’s about Time!
recognized by so Many
with Hope barely remembered
magnified by People and People and People
it’s about Time!
says a note paper-clipped
to the shirt pocket
of a middle class businessman
it’s about Time!
witness the pink and golden and chocolate
surging crowds diverted by police
but honking waving
flashing the Peace sign
Today! Again! Now!
the Revolution may not be televised
but it is Tweeted and Facebooked and Yootoobed
the ethos of a new generation
filling the ether untapped
unavailable to earlier uprisings
stories unfiltered
by the mechanized press
who spin subversion of the subverters
but barricades will not stop
this Truth!
the Voices of the Future
are raised in defense of this country
and the World
and the planet
a chorus swelling
as they capture the imagination
of Lost generations
searching for the way Home
to America
II
early morning sunlight falls in bars
between the endless march
of buildings
not yet touching numberless bodies
stretched out on stone
patchwork quilt
of homeless by choice
layers of desires
ribbons of ethos
woven together in a random palette
brighter than the massed fall flowers
planted before
this was the People’s Park
are you ok?
do you need anything?
Blankets? Coffee? Food?
sun slanting in
the children awaken
the business of the city’s day
clashing and pounding
in ears still buzzing
from late night speeches
endless earnest discussions
only stilled as one by one
we were called into the arms
of deathlike sleep
line for the bathroom
micky d’s
thousands and thousands served
corporation facilitating
the anti-corporate State
of Affairs
alive and well in Liberty Square
but not without a bathroom
thus are we still hostage
to random industrial consciousness
in spite of All not expecting
the midnight sweeps
feral policemen
clothed in nightmare
our numbers swollen
by the chronic homeless seeking food
hungry ghosts
bound
to cockroach night streets
bound
by the web of no Change
(spare change is never enough)
there is a Silence deeper than No Sound
of dreams unspoken
Rights unclaimed
the Sound of Fear
and a Despair so fathomless
the Spirit withers Dark
but the Rising Sun is a bell
and we are the Vibration
sounding the end
sounding the end
sounding the end
of what?
III
we came from aging hipsters
not dead yet
of our own furies and excesses
not broken
by lies and betrayals
nor fooled by the false rationality
of the deniers of history
from the youth of the post-hip
generation of anomist wanderers
not mainlining Internet
or lost in the mazes
of electronic journeys and virtual slaughters
from the children
for whom Community is an archaic dream
vanished into the mythology
of ancient storytellers
from the Vast heartland
bewildered by the world collapsing
around us
to the tune of consumerist jingles
urging the celebration
of the new Terrorist Epoch
with shopping sprees funded
by phantom employment
as the homes we thought we owned
disappeared into the pockets
of those who wrote the fine print
at the bottom of the Social Contract
that we must have forgotten to read
we created a space
of Absolute Freedom
temporary but Joyous
high on the power of immediate and unfiltered
Words and Ideas given life
by the voices of thousands
amplified by the Voice of us All
we came to the library at Liberty Square
the loaded tables helter skelter
grubby hands greedy minds
starving to share
hungry to inhale understanding
and excrete the madness
of Lost generations
become Avatars in the new millennium
conduits of Justice Truth & Law
only Dreamed on this Stolen continent
offering bodies like cordwood
to Fire the New Revolution
but would we truly choose to die
for the sins of our father’s gullibility
who bought into the Enlightenment
daydream
the Perfectibility of Humankind?
would we be shot down in the street
if it comes to that
for delusions of possible equality
illusions of polity
in a world where the Good Life
always comes at someone else’s expense
where the fortunate bless the Dawn
from the aching shoulders
of the unremembered?
where are the Poets
of this Massive Undertaking?
where are the street corner ranters?
the singers of anthems?
the criers of Outrage?
the voices of those who labour
unrelentingly
not only for themselves
but for All whose Rights must be protected?
the library is torn now and scattered
dispersed and destroyed
by thieves of Wisdom
pickpockets of Compassion
twisters perverters of Revelation
imprisoners of Inspiration
deathdealers evildoers
storm troopers
hidden behind Kevlar
and automatic weapons
enacting the Will
of those who spin definitions
filter Reality and sanitize dissent
for whom ambivalence is Weakness
selflessness is for chumps
and respect is reserved for the Victors
leaving the artists the children the losers
the madmen and the dreamers
to seed the outskirts of civilization
with poetry & revolution
Wild new growth sprouting
from cracks in the sidewalk
overtaking blank city blocks of street shoes
oxford cloth
flannel and pinstripe
the indefinable anarchic masses
insistent on the diffuse Ideal
the Unexplained
continually Explored
Uncomfortable bed of political nails
that will never let us Sleep
* published in the 2013 Special Edition of Napalm Health Spa: Long Poem Masterpieces of the PostBeats
