It has been quite the weekend. One of the largest, one-day protests in U.S. history occurred yesterday—No Kings. Of course, those in power are trying to turn it into some kind of January 6-like insurrection. It wasn’t. We gathered, held signs, chanted slogans, sang, danced, high-fived inflatable unicorns.
Of course, the question is: will it make a difference?
My answer is: I don’t know.
However, simply sitting back and letting the United States of America become the Third Reich Part Two isn’t an option for any clear-thinking, intelligent citizen. We must stand up, speak out, regardless of the consequences. The U.S. Constitution gives us that right, until the justices of the Supreme Court decide to turn that document into a roll of Charmin.
But I can’t tell you how or if this will all end. I just watched a video about the Doomsday Clock. Now, this little symbol has been in existence since about 1940, and it represents the “estimated likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe.” Currently, that clock now stands at 89 seconds to midnight (due to ongoing threats from nuclear weapons, climate change, bio weapons, and technologies like AI). That means that the world is less than 90 geologic seconds away from total annihilation.
And what happens when civilization as we know it ends? Well, if history is any indication, something new will be born.
Sharon Olds writes about rebirth . . .
Dear Heart,
by: Sharon Olds
How did you know to turn me over,
then, when I couldn’t know to take
the moment to turn and start to begin
to finish, I was out there, far ahead
of my body, far ahead of the earth,
ahead of the moon—like someone on the other
side of the moon, stepped off, facing space, I was
floating out there, splayed, facing
away, fucked, fucked, my face
glistening and distorted pressed against the inner
caul of the world. I was almost beyond
pleasure, in a region of icy, absolute
sensing, my open mouth and love-slimed
cheeks stretching the membrane the way
the face of the almost born can appear, still
veiled in its casing, just inside
the oval portal, pausing, about
to split its glistering mask—you eased me
back, drew me back into the human
night, you turned me and the howling slowed, and at the
crux of our joining, flower heads grew
fast-motion against you, swelled and burst without
tearing—ruinless death, each
sepal, each petal, came to the naught
of earth, our portion, in ecstasy, ash
to fire to ash, dust to bloom to dust.
It’s a very dense poem. I remember reading and rereading it several times when I first encountered it in graduate school. Sure, it’s about the pleasure of sex and the speaker’s need to be drawn back from the ether of ecstasy. But, mostly, the poem is about love and desire and bodily autonomy. Being in control (or not in control) of your own happiness and pleasure.
Of course, we know that female autonomy is not a high priority for the current people in power in Washington, D.C. So, we have protests and marches and petitions and, eventually (hopefully?), elections. That’s what yesterday was all about. Taking power away from leaders whose only aim is protecting the ultra-wealthy and disenfranchising as many of the poor/middle class as possible.
I’m not trying to convert anyone here. If you’re Republican and you’re happy, clap your hands, as the old children’s song goes. And if you’re Democrat and you’re pissed off, clap your hands. I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum. I don’t care, as long as their beliefs don’t start infringing on my rights.
If you’re a MAGA Republican, go paint your bedroom walls with swastikas. If you’re a Bernie Sanders democratic socialist, let me know where to sign up for universal healthcare.
Saint Marty wrote a poem about yesterday’s protests, based on the following prompt from October 18 of The Daily Poet:
In 1892, New York and Chicago were connected for the first time by a long-distance telephone line. For this poem, we’re going to do a poetic play on the kids’ “Telephone Game” where you whisper something to one person in a circle and watch it change as it moves from child to child. Write a first line to a poem about anything you like. Now take this line and morph it a bit; that line will become the first line of your second stanza. For example, if you wrote,” I dream in color about cantaloupes,” your next line might be, “I dream in color, but can’t elope.” Now take that new second line and morph it a bit more. This will be the first line of your third stanza. Continue to do this two more times, so you have five similar (but different!) lines, write a poem where each of these lines begins each of your five stanzas.
No Kings Day Canticle
by: Martin Achatz
We line the highway with signs and unicorns,
raise our arms, shout as if we’re being called
at a tent revival to accept Jesus as our savior,
because this is what democracy looks like, crowded
with wheelchairs, dancing frogs, strollers, and drag queens.
We find the highway with signs and unique horns,
set up camp, listen to Pete Seegers enjoin
us about overcoming hand-in-hand,
Dylans growl about blowing winds, Guthries
walking that ribbon, that golden valley.
Be kind, the skyway pines and forlorns
on this bright day when freedom fills
the air like the smell of popcorn
at a movie theater, making us all
hungry for its buttery promise.
Be mindful of why they whine, scorn
our flags and chants, the torches we
hold high as Emma Lazarus did
for the exhausted, the penniless who
crossed the sea to these stolen lands.
We blind fools cry and mourn
for the good old days when racism
hid under sheets, behind badges.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s the problem:
we never threw out our whips and chains.
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