A large part of history is replete with the struggle for human rights, an eternal struggle in which final victory can never be won. But to tire in that struggle would mean the ruin of society. Albert Einstein, 1955
Love me baby, love me for who I am
Fallen angels singing, “clap your hands”
Don’t try to take my country, I will defend my land
I’m not crazy, baby, naw
I’m American
Happy Monday!
from Centenary
I know you’re angry.
So am I.
How could we not be?
Children ripped from their parents,
Concentration camps in Texas.
“I can’t breathe”
“I remember their laughter”
A child-man throwing ugly decrees from his high chair.
But from a high shelf in Europe come watercolor images a century on.
French families fleeing destruction.
Children starving in Yemen.
Corpses of trees standing witness as men follow orders into death.
As we follow our leaders.
They know who we need to hate.
In front of City Hall we are led in chants.
We know the story.
Our indignation gives us the right to hate.
We have worked so hard, but They stole our votes, our climate, our lives.
We will make them pay!
We will come here every night if necessary!
Bearing placards, twisted pictures of an uncrowned King.
A piñata we can beat to death
Until we get our hands…
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1.
Pablo Neruda
July 12, 1904-September 23, 1973
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
2.
Norma Jeane Mortenson
June 1, 1926-August 5, 1962
I am not a victim of emotional conflicts. I am human.
Norma Jeane Mortenson
3.
Harvey Milk
May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978
“All men are created equal. No matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.”
― Harvey Milk, The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words
4.
el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz
May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
― Malcolm X
5.
Nina Simone
February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003
“I am just one of the people who is sick of the social order, sick of the establishment, sick to my soul of it all. To me, America’s society is nothing but a cancer, and it must be exposed before it can be cured. I am not the doctor to cure it. All I can do is expose the sickness.”
― Nina Simone
6.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
― John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
7.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 1929- April 4, 1968
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right. Martin Luther King, Jr.
8.
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau
July 5, 1889 – 11 October 11, 1963
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
Jean Cocteau
9.
Frank O’Hara
March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966
“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.”
― Frank O’Hara, Early Writing
10.
Simone de Beauvoir
January 9, 1908 – April 14, 1986
Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying. Simone de Beauvoir
11.
Jean Genet
December 19, 1910-April 15, 1986
What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so deep that I wonder if every white man in this country, when he plants a tree, doesn’t see Negroes hanging from its branches. Jean Genet
Header photo, Portrait of Malcolm X, by Rob Goldstein (c) 2016
Blog post update July, 2018
from The Eye-Dancers
In both The Eye-Dancers and The Singularity Wheel, Mitchell Brant, Joe Marma, Ryan Swinton, and Marc Kuslanski can’t help but notice how inexpensive things are in the variant town of Colbyville. In The Singularity Wheel, in fact, Ryan manages to secure a room in an inn for just $5 a night. Prices like that make the boys think of period-piece movies, Beaver Cleaver, black-and-white still lifes from a bygone era, speckled with cobwebs.
Indeed, I once worked with a woman who, every year, upon receiving her annual “cost-of’-living” raise, would grouse, “Well, three percent of nothing is still nothing!” Many of the other employees would nod their heads in agreement. We all notice the increase in prices ($4.49 for that box of cereal? $10 for a standard book of twenty stamps?) and are caught in the current of escalation as it continues along on its…
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