I nominate #ArcadeFire’s Sprawl II for inclusion in #OccupyGezi soundtrack. Dead shopping malls…
A Good Friday poem for the Follow Friday era
Follow
By Roland Flint
Now here is this man mending his nets
after a long day, his fingers
nicked, here and there, by ropes and hooks,
pain like tomorrow in the small of his back,
his feet blue with his name, stinking of baits,
his mind on a pint and supper — nothing else —
a man who describes the settled shape
of his life every time his hands
make and snug a perfect knot.
I want to understand, if only for the story,
how a man like this,
a man like my father in harvest,
like Bunk MacVane in the stench of lobstering,
or a teamster, a steelworker,
how an ordinary working stiff,
even a high tempered one,
could just be called away.
It’s only in one account
he first brings in a netful —
in all the others, he just calls,
they return the look or stare and then
they “straightaway” leave their nets to follow.
That’s all there is. You have to figure
what was in that call, that look.
(And I wouldn’t try it on a tired working man
unless I was God’s son —
he’d kick your ass right off the pier.)
If they had been vagrants,
poets or minstrels, I’d understand that,
men who would follow a different dog.
But how does a man whose movement,
day after day after day,
absolutely trusts the shape it fills
put everything down and walk away?
I’d pass up all the fancy stunting
with Lazarus and the lepers
to see that one.
Last week, I awoke to find Aaron with me. He was sitting next to my bed, grinning his cheekiest grin, holding my hand.
For a few minutes, I savored a sweet uncertainty: Were the last few weeks all a nightmare, and Aaron was still with me? Or was I awaking inside a dream state, and in the real…
The Power of WE (Blog Action Day 2012)
So it’s 2012 and the state of the planet
Is NOT what it would be if you and I ran it
There’s hunger and famine and droughts and despair
PCBs in the water! CO2 in the air!
There’s too many coal plants and not enough trees
Tigers endangered, vanishing bees,
Oceans aplenty? A thing of the past.
Bountiful croplands? They USED TO BE vast.
There’s war and there’s torture, intolerance, fear
Nuclear accidents, year after year
The problem: too much of our living is spent
In building a world fit for just one percent.
Shell bought up the Arctic, Mitsibushi the sea
The paradise forests? See AP and P
The day will come soon when no seed can be sown
That Monsanto can’t claim as its patented own
The votes of our leaders are auctioned away
To the arms trade, to Exxon, UT, NRA
While the sea ice gets thin and the coral turns white
There’s a few of us saying our plight isn’t right
350 and Oxfam, MoveOn and Grist
Treehugger, PETA, you’re all on the list
Woof-woof and Greenpeace, Avaaz and Care2,
SumOfUs, Amnesty, Change dot org, too,
Action Aid, Act up, MSF, Ten-Ten,
Tck-Tck-Tck, F.O.E: more I should mention.
All of us make up the power of “we”
But only if WE includes you, you and me.
WE can turn sunlight and wind into power
WE can make dictators step down and cower
WE can stop greed from curdling our future
WE can stop climate change: you, Ma’m and you Sir,
WE can feed billions, WE can stop cancer
But only if WE believe WE are the answer
Think of the things WE could do with this planet
If WE were the power that stood up, and ran it.
