Occupy Poem Street

https://obenzinger.com/busy-dying-book-excerpt/

An excerpt from my book Busy Dying about Columbia 1968

Busy Dying – Book Excerpt Book Excerpt Busy Dying Columbia Revolt Low Commune April 1968 From Eisenhower to Grayson Kirk Columbia lurches from jerk to jerk When I got back to Hamilton Hall, the main classroom building for t…

This is from a book I'm writing, "Old Fool." At least here you can see the birth of Old, and the anniversary is tomorrow.

I know exactly when I got old. I don’t mean getting older; I mean gotten old, that moment when I reached the point of qualitative collapse after so much quantitative chip after chip. I was walking down the driveway in Los Altos to my car from a lunch meeting with a colleague working on the project researching the Chinese workers who built the Pacific part of the transcontinental railroad. We had a lot to talk about Chinese railroad workers, especially our plans to produce oral histories of descendants, like her. And the lunch was great Chinese food. So, I was feeling content, satisfied, gratified that we were making so much progress in our project, and we would actually affect the way Americans understand the whole story of the transcontinental railroad and of the Chinese who played such an essential role.

Partway down the driveway, my legs became useless, I suddenly collapsed fell to the ground. Piercing pain cut into my back; I was struck down by an invisible bullet; and I crawled to my car, got the door open, pulled myself in, and managed to get myself home.

From that day on I was set upon by an array of medical mad dogs, miseries requiring vast contributions to Big Pharma for meds as well as multiple surgeries and medical procedures, and my mind starting to unravel. My back was a mess, and I began to live with constant pain. That moment in the driveway was when Old snapped into place. I know the date. April 13, 2018. About 4pm. Yes, it was Friday the 13th. I don’t think I was cursed by the calendar; it could have easily been on Saturday. Old is beyond superstition. Old means you’re done, and that’s the way it is, not Dead, but Old. Old makes happy to be alive despite the pain. Old is all you got. Hold on tight.

At least I won’t get dragged into El Camino Real and gunned down. Or not have my house in Gaza blast to smithereens with a giant dumb bomb. I hope.

Trump is Netenyahu's candidate. Netenyahu is trying to corner Biden to do something he doesn't want to do. Bibi wants to drag out the war, expand it, draw the US into war with Iran, blast Hezbollah Lebanon. The only way to survive, politically and even militarily, is to make the war even bigger. Meanwhile, Biden has done an old failed trick of US presidents. Give Israel everything, veto the security council resolutions, send money and bombs - and think that will give Biden leverage so that Israel will be "reasonable" in their attempt to seize everything from the river to the sea. Except Israeli hardly obeys. The Zionist leaders can thumb their noses, just as they did their original British sponsor. "You need us more than we need you." If Trump wins, he's already said Netenyahu can do whatever he wants, and the slaughter will expand and the final extermination expulsion destruction of Palestinians can take place. Biden is susceptible to pro-Palestinian movement, and Trump and Republicans are becoming the Zionist party, supplanting the Democrats. Better that the old Cold War imperialist get elected than the old fascistic sociopath who is set to murder people at an even vaster scale. There's a chance versus not a chance in hell.

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13954709/alta-shameless-h***y-press-dies-at-81

Alta was a creative fount in the 70s, and she elevated the notion as well as the production of "shameless h***y." A terrific poet in the SF Bay flowering.

Alta, ‘Shameless Hussy’ and Founder of Nation's First Feminist Press, Dies at 81 | KQED From her East Bay press, the poet published groundbreaking work by Ntozake Shange and others.

Neeli Cherkovski now gone. Photos from his kitchen and from a reading at City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Too sad, but fortunately, we have his books, with collected poems coming out soon.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/3/13/remembering-mahmoud-darwish-the-poetic-voice-of-palestine

It's always worth remembering Darwish.

‘The war will end’: Remembering Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s poetic voice Mahmoud Darwish’s poems are ever relevant to the conditions of Palestinians, particularly now in Gaza.

Lost Last Words

No last words
All words are last
Gaza words are lost
Sniper words
Drone words
Blast words
Lost last words
“I’m afraid, Daddy, I’m afraid”
“I’m getting bread
I’ll be right back”
Too many words
Not enough to eat
Last silence
Lost grief
Words that shoot
Words that wound
Lost silence
Last wails
Lost wails
Killing words
Innocent words
Guilty words
Curse words
Words of anguish
To stop death words
Bombs form whole paragraphs
With lost words
Prayer words hold tears
Lost tears hold hope
Life words first
Words of hope hold
First words
First words hold joy
Let those words come
First and forever

Hilton Obenzinger

Notes on the Day

May 16, 2019

Bomb Iranazuela
Attack any uterus that does not submit
Make war on the planet
Pump out our dinosaur guts
Make burnt offerings to Exxon
Go on safaris to murder as many species as we can
Nobody cares about the wind and the sun
Sell air the same as water
Bombing Gaza is fun
And if they don’t accept our deal they get no gift
Give China double happiness tariffs
Shoot these refugees invading our tongues
No more Spanish and no more Mandarin
84 degrees in the Arctic Ocean
Warm enough for a resort
Very soon
Someone will walk into a school with a gun

WOKE AMERICA : THE WAIT IS OVER NOW By HILTON OBENZINGER : For many there was a little wait-and-see; maybe he would grow into the job, become ‘presidential.’ But now the wait is over. More and more people in the U.S. are realizing th…

Manafort Plastic

March 7, 2018

What was the world like without plastic?
I walk through the world trying to identify
All the plastic everywhere in ordinary things
Cup juice container door k**b pen keyboard straw
The judge blesses the guilty because he's white and rich
And I get distracted and lose count of all the plastic
The money-laundering agent of Marcos and all dictators
Yet the judge said he was a decent man
Who led an otherwise blameless life
What would the world be like without fools in robes?

Hilton Obenzinger

Separated

Hilton Obenzinger

My children, my love
We may never meet again
But you are always my daughter
And you are always my son
And I am your mother
I was willing to risk everything
To protect you
Even if they took you
Before I could carry you
Across to the other side
I am always there even if I am not
Look to the Holy Mother and see me
I am always there even if I am not
My children, my love

copyright Hilton Obenzinger 2018

MY COMFORT ANIMAL

He has gold teeth in the shape of little cities
Jagged skylines of gold with avenues along the gums
And who knows how many people disappear
Torn between those gold serrated edges
Sliced crushed and pulped

I need my peacock I need my comfort animal
Such terrible gas wafts from his as***le

As I walk through the valley of those gums
In the shadow of gold towers like knives
I know my days are numbered
My mission is a failure
I have not been able to convince this golem
To join the cavalcade of humans
He’d rather swallow them

I need my comfort animal I need my rabbit
I cannot live in a world spit out from his mouth

His eyes are sphincters, squeezing shut
Then opening wide
To push out darkness like s**t
His brains are fields of dank weeds
With hallucinations and poison for all
His hair is a constant barrage of golden mushroom clouds
Radiation like false perfume wafts a sweet aroma
That makes my skin peel off

I need my pig my comfort animal
I cannot believe I’m seeing this with my own eyes

Maybe these are in fact not my own eyes
But someone else’s that rolled out of the gold city
What do we do with all the sickening perfume?
How do we stop this molten re**um?
What store do we go to return it?
I still have the receipt mixed in
With the remains of his Big Macs
I don’t even want my money back
Just take this creature and leave us alone

I need my comfort animal my lion
We need to slip into a different forest

Hilton Obenzinger

February 17, 2018

Disclosure Agreement
Tidal wave of sexual assault swamps all ships
Except the sloop The Rapist-in-Chief
Fo**le women and children first!
Save the CEOs and their appetites
Tax the Students and tax the Poor
Tax the Women who give birth to the Poor
No abortions allowed
R**e is the judgment of God
Tax the Sun and tax the Stars
No climate can stop the Monster Storm
Tax the hope for Love
Reach under Liberty’s dress
And tax Justice until it explodes like a piñata
All the treats flying into the arms of bankers
Tax Black folks for crossing the street
Tax Black athletes until they cross the street
Crawling on their knees
Nothing is neutral not even the Net
We must pay for all of our lies
Or else we are not free to divulge our tears
The Great Orange Chief mumbles praise to Navajo vet heroes
In front of Indian killer Jackson
And quips Pocahontas
Consorts with neo-N***s and flashes Hate Muslims
Remember D Day? It wasn’t Dick Day
Did he apologize for Access Hollywood
Or was it all Fake Truth?
Don’t matter, the Beast walks among us,
Need to zip up mouth full of lies
Greed keeps Congress Republicans young
Kid Ryan and the Old Turtle allow
The N***s to frolic
The rich need to be made whole again
They need to own all and get away with it
North Korea awaits the Little Hand Bomb
Make America Vaporize Again
We’re on the cusp of erasing the Constitution
Even though it’s hard to rub out parchment
Much easier to delete cut and paste
Reality is not virtuous
Praise God and pass the mustard
Years from now, if we haven’t perished
We’ll have some explaining to do
It is happening here, right now
Alarms are going off
In Alabama and around the world
So, I’ve torn up my Non Disclosure Agreement
No NDA no delusions no jokes
Take your money back
Take your obscene stupidity
Take your vicious arrogance
Take all of it back
The time has come
I won’t shut up
Will you?

Hilton Obenzinger

Nov. 30, 2017

Taking Count

Men! It's time to take a count:
There's a president
There's another president
There's the current president
Who says "Believe Me" and grabs
Then there's the senator
There's the Hollywood Mogul
(Do we know what a Mogul is?)
Then there's the comic, the doctor
There's another comic
There's the senator who used to be a comic
Then there's the actor
And there's a director
Of course there's the priest and the teacher
There's a professor also
And another professor
And another
There's an even older president
There's the Sunday School teacher
There's a pastor minister rabbi guru
Here comes another president
The famous writer, all the celebrity
Crackpots are here too
There's the student
There's the guy at the copy machine
There's the guy who cleans the office
Then another senator
A candidate for congress
There's a very rich man
There's a not so rich man
Chalk up another senator
We could be here all night
Every man needs to dig deep
That means me too
There are pinches
There's "seduction"
There's the grab
There's the glad hand
There's all of this and more
Each man and more
Now - no more
Stop
One more president and that's it
Done and over and out
Keep your hands to yourself
Stop
Welcome to a new social contract
Sign on the zipper

Let's Shoot

Let’s go to church and shoot
Let’s go to the movies and shoot
Let’s go to the music festival
Let’s go to the supermarket
Let’s go to the school
Let’s go to the aquarium and shoot out the glass
And have people drown while we shoot them
And don't forget to shoot the fish
Let’s go to the museum and shoot Art
And then shoot the people looking at Picasso
Let’s shoot Picasso
He’s dead so let’s go to the cemetery and shoot the dead
Let’s go to the Halls of Justice and shoot all the judges
Let’s go to the NRA HQ and shoot everyone
Let’s go to the moon and shoot earth
Let’s get drunk and shoot
Let’s pray and shoot
Let’s go to the hospital and shoot the sick
Let’s get naked and shoot
Let’s shoot naked people
Let’s get an AR-15 and shoot people we hate
Let’s shoot people we love
Let’s never run out of bullets
Let’s never run out of long guns automatics
Let's get a truckload of gr***de launchers
If only we had tanks and missiles
Let’s shoot while the shooting lasts
So much to shoot and so little time
Let’s shoot the small quiet wind
That blows through our hearts
And kill it good

Hilton Obenzinger

After Trump's decision to end DACA, it's time to recirculate this poem. One of the psalms in "Treyf Pesach." We know who the Holy Ones are.

Be Here

If the soldiers come,
If the holy ones come,
If the trees come walking through the doors,
If you unscrew the locks from the doors,
If the mountains come, stumbling through the doors,
If you unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs,
If you open doors in the middle of dreams,
If you sanction love without murder,
If the refugees come, muddy and drowned,
If you have joined their stream, ready to drown,
If the Border Patrol covers the earth with shackles,
If the Border Patrol covers the earth with lost doors,
If you make miracles of simple survival,
If you resist all icy embraces,
If the Coast Guard decides there is no coast,
If you can find no doors,
If the holy ones require a forwarding address,
If love needs a place to hide,
If the soldiers come,
You can stay here,
You can hide here,
You can stay by my side,
Be here

Houston, we have a problem.
Houston, are you there?
Houston, do you have a problem?
If you have a problem, what the hell are we supposed to do?
Houston, you're the one to guide us, and now you have sunk.
Earth to Houston, are you there?
Come in, please.
Earth to Houston - please stay alive.
Houston, it's 106 degrees in San Francisco, unheard of
Never been that hot, ever.
Houston, the fires surround us, the smoke closes in
We know the world has changed
And you are swept away in a storm
Houston, you are sprawled across the Gulf
Like a patient etherized on a table
We laugh for you, but we know the ordeal continues
We laugh with floods and fires and earthquakes,
With gases and flows
Maybe Houston knows
Houston, will you guide us to another planet?
Houston, we have a problem.

One More Eclipse

August 21, 2017
The Grand Eclipse
I have it in my calendar
The next time it comes around
I’ll be dead, or at least I hope so
But no Totality here
In San Francisco
Only the Path of Partiality
And I’m not at all impartial
When total or even partial darkness
Blots out fear
Or does it erupt with fear?
Will there be mobs screaming in the streets
N***s on the loose
Like some old movie?
Running out of the movie house
Ahead of The Blob?
In fact I plan on watching that movie
Or digging into a book
While everyone else slips on their glasses
To take a look
At the Cosmic Clock
Ticking to a stop
I have no need to witness
The Solar System as it makes its rounds
I have seen it circle in my Heart
I have felt it revolve around my Soul
As Suns and Moons orbit
Marking all of Time
Should I forfeit Eternal Life?
Or should I savor Partial Life?
I’ll look inward
When the Sun gets to blot
Or I’ll watch the flowers in my yard
As they tilt upwards
Towards the Dark

Hilton Obenzinger

I've posted several of the poems in this book here, but there's a lot more.

Blasphemy is holy—and exciting, outrageous literature in TREYF PESACH (Unkosher Passover). Novelist Paul Auster declares that this book "strikes with all the force of an exploding bomb—because it speaks the truth." This collection of poems presents radical departures from traditional rituals, formats and conventions: alternative Passover Seders, Yom Kippur liturgy, Thanksgiving prayers, psalms and other poems in the form of proclamations, resolutions, jazz improvisations, incantations, rants, orations, comic monologues, oil spills, life spills, songs, visions, undocumented documents, borders, suns, farewells, minutes of meetings, talk-stories, and all accompanied by provocative drawings of Treyf Passover Seder plates by artist Charles Steckler. In this book the symbolic plate is arrayed with treyf (un-kosher food) and the story of the Exodus with untypical meanings, whiskey instead of wine, recounting the continual slavery of wars and military occupations. The poems in TREYF PESACH have taken place over the course of years and various occasions, from vicious aggressions, to absurd walls, to smallpox blankets, to oil spouting across the Gulf, and more, all framed by the first months of the Trump regime. Some have been read out loud at Seders, Yom Kippur services, Thanksgiving Day benedictions, Sunday fellowships, and other ceremonies. But those are the exceptions. For the most part TREYF PESACH has been placed under arrest and shoved across the borders of respectability. Hilton Obenzinger writes poetry, fiction, history, and criticism, and is the recipient of the American Book Award. According to poet Diane di Prima, "he is the American Jonathan Swift."

http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781943209163/treyf-pesach.aspx

Treyf Pesach Treyf Pesach Poetry. Jewish Studies. Blasphemy is holy—and exciting, outrageous literature in TREYF PESACH (Unkosher Passover). Novelist Paul Auster declares that this book "strikes with all the force of an exploding bomb—because it speaks the truth." This collection ...

Waiting for Trump

December 2016

I sit in one of the greasy truck stops on Interstate 5, near Red Bluff, dizzy and scared.
Decades of hope seem suddenly to turn to bulls**t.
Dread and rage swirl around the country, but the lunch counter is quiet with snoozing baseball caps tipping into coffee cups.
Fox is on the TV, yet no one needs to watch the news.
They already know the news.
Something bubbles in the kitchen, like death.
Soon we will have to eat those French fries.

On the frozen plains, in howling snow, Indians come to stop the Black Snake.
They stand to block the way, whether the Iron Horse or the Black Snake, waiting as the new president takes his seat.
We all wait.
Perhaps the ghosts will return and not the cavalry.

Tonight the deeper darkness comes, darker than before.
Spies denounce the spying of other spies.
The Kremlin carries the paralyzing kryptonite, as hulking cyber armies gather in the night.
Menacing men rip scarves from the heads of women.
Kids scrawl ugly slogans on school walls.
Burning crosses dance in their eyes of White Nationalists like the sugarplum fairies of the shopping season.
And we wait.

Cops who are honest worry what they may be called to do.
And those who are not touch their holsters, assured that they may impose order and nature’s law at will, and they wait to pursue someone’s happiness because they fear for their lives.
Farm workers, hunching over the entire Sacramento Valley, tear plants up by the roots, and fear for their lives.
Violence has found its season.

Tired truckers stretch out in the rear of their cabs, about a dozen rigs lined up in the dark along the shoulder of the freeway, and they get some shuteye.
I rearrange the eggs and bacon on my plate and wonder what those men think.
Perhaps they believe that everything will be great again when they open their eyes and find themselves back on the road.
They were given a promise.
Perhaps they will really pay off all their credit cards because they work hard and they’re white.

We wait for robot drivers to fly up and down the Central Valley, picking up apricots and dropping off tractor parts, with no need to s**t at the truck stops, no need to sip the chicken noodle soup.
And the day the robots begin to drive, the dreaming truckers will sleep in the back seat of their old Chevrolets, their steering wheels taken from their hands, waiting for the promise.

We wait for everything and for nothing.
There is no singularity, no instant wide horizons, no ironic lights, but a grim stupor, as the tycoon casts a long shadow from his golden tower, lumbers to the White House to take possession of one more property, while delirious settlers really do slouch towards Bethlehem.

The Great Man holds court.
His loyal children seek his hand, the great and the rich, the powerful and the ridiculous float up the elevator shaft to meet the wizard king. Generals, CEOS, moral monsters, angry souls, fools of exceptional quality, celebrities, they all rise up to the tower, taken to the penthouse to bend before the greater fool.

We wait.
There is a pervasive sense of dread before the beast takes the oath, before the Republic becomes a wholly owned subsidiary.
Ordinary life goes on, and we wonder.

We must love one another and die.
Our danger is great, and we must love one another or die.
Is it love and die?
Or is it love or die?
Do we have a choice?

What’s on TV?

Call to Order
For Francesca Rosa in Hospice

Come together, brains, blood, kidneys, spirit, soul, smiles, eyeballs,
Come together earlobes, dreams, stories,
Gather everyone for Francesca, it’s time to meet,
Time to sort out all the work and what’s to come,
To plan the next action.
Fingers, you’re now appointed Sargent of Arms,
So keep these nostrils and lips in line.
No snitches, no scabs, no vacillators, no provocateurs.
We’re all in this together, and there’s a lot to do.

Old Business

Leave behind robot cars,
Forget about drones and Hollywood knuckleheads.
Skip the World Series, no need for passwords.
No need for credit cards or soup.
So long to Puccini and Woody Guthrie and BB King.
Hand the picket sign to the one behind you.
Give up your footsteps to someone else.
Fling all your beautiful words over your head
So babies can catch them.
Let go of the misery and the joy,
So others can refresh themselves in tears and laughter,
And know that you gave us everything, that you gave us love.

New Business

All of your being, all of your parts and particulars,
Are electing you to the stars.
You’re elevated to become an Ancestor,
A full member of the Advisory Board for the workers
In the fields of desire,
And those on the shop floor, the pulsating planet, will look for you
In the clouds and rivers that sweep across our faces,
And you’ll be there,
Working on paragraphs and stories and strategies,
You’ll be there stretching the sky to cover our hearts,
You’ll be there at every step forward and each stumble back,
You’ll be there, organizing atoms and molecules,
Barging through Black Holes,
And we’ll know you’re with us and for us,
And we’ll breath your air and your touch,
And we’ll need you to be the darkness of dawn
And the light of dusk,
And we’ll work for you, wish for you,
Until the time comes that we’re together again,
Waiting for the next meeting,
Waiting for love, gathering hope,
And your gavel will bang down like a song to call us to order.

Hilton Obenzinger

Thank you to the Iroquois, Tlingit, Lakota, Hopi, Navajo, Acoma, Yurok, Cherokee, Pequot, Creek, thanks to all the tribes and nations, thanks to the first people of the continent, thanks for what you have given despite all that was taken from you, thank you for your generosity despite the constant theft, despite the sickness and booze, the poverty and suicides, thank you for surviving and then returning to fight again at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee, thanks for enduring and resisting and thriving despite massacres and humiliations, thanks for teaching us all how to be true, how to be people of this continent, for respecting all those who came before and for the generations who will come after us.

The world is afraid and on the move.

Thousands fleeing war and poverty tramp across Europe, drift across the Mediterranean, push against borders, thousands of kids work their way to the US to flee the violence, across the Gulf of Bengal to escape massacres, crossing rivers to find themselves adrift, thirsty, famished, waiting for help.

And the monuments follow after them, all of Palmyra, statues and temples, pick themselves up and rumble toward France and Germany, fleeing the nightmare of humans with sledgehammers, the Pyramids and the Parthenon are watching, wary, ready to go.

All the words of all the languages flow into a tub floating across the Caribbean, music wanders off into space, dreams escape through blowholes in the sky, the past is smashed into dust, the Trail of Tears gets repeated day after day, the only thing getting bigger is the desperation, and the bloated stomachs of children.

And those in California and other safe places feel even safer - until the waters rise and the earth turns to dust and we too need to hit the road, grabbing our bags, walking to some place wet but not too wet and not too hot and free of guns, someplace that will take us in along with our redwoods.

Everyone who sits will some day have to stand, everyone who stands will have to move, will have to flee what we have done, and find someplace else, somewhere that has not been ruined by the violence people inflict on ourselves and our planet.

Unless you have a better idea.

Pamela Geller got her wish. She organized a hateful event, trying to provoke an extreme response, and two fools fell for it. Now they're dead and she can rave. But free speech is not the same as hatred - although everyone has the right to say what they want. Free speech means cultivating dialogue, even when you disagree - although everyone has the right to be obnoxious. But don't call Geller's show in Texas a "free speech event." This provocation as premonition is like the Norquist anti-tax gang: cut more and more funds to needed government service such as fixing old bridges; and then when the bridge collapses because it was not repaired say that it proves that government is incompetent. Create your own reality, provoke your desired hatred, cultivate more and more outrageous lies (e.g., Obama is the love child of Malcolm X), then sit back and watch the violence bloom like a mushroom cloud.

I wrote this right after the election in Israel for Passover coming soon. Add your own words to the Haggadah:

Treyf Pesach

This year I am observing a Treyf Pesach.

Help me sweep the chometz back into the house, for we need to get dirty.

Help me replace the wine with whiskey, lots of it, so we can forget the horror.

Once we were slaves, and now we are slaves again.

Instead of matzo symbolizing the haste in which we fled slavery, stack up slices of white bread, any kind of leavened bread because now Pharaoh Bibi holds our people in thrall.

Chop up the apples and nuts to represent all the Palestinian houses blown up.

Eat the bitter herbs to remember how the beauty of our culture has been infused with hate.

Slap down a pork chop rib to remember how all of the hopes and dreams of freedom have turned ugly, have turned to blood, have become a vile joke.

Eat the slimy kale to recall all the olive trees torn out of the ground.

Dip the leafy slime into the salt water to cry over how young kids are lording over old men at checkpoints.

Eat the horseradish to recall the bitterness of lies in our name. Shove spoonfuls of horseradish down each other’s throats so we can never forget what we have done.

Put the egg in the center to recall that once we were a people rich with variety and joy and now we are a cartoon of ourselves -– but even then spring will come, maybe, if the warming earth allows.

Why is this night different from all other nights? It’s not, it’s the same old story of using our own pain to cause the pain of others.

The foolish child is the only wise one around. He says, I want to get out of here, I’d rather live in Berlin or LA than stomp on other people and call that democracy.

The wise child is a fool, asking why he can’t get lower rent and doesn’t notice the bloated settlements.

Let the girls sing the new Dayenu.

We build walls to choke another people –- Enough Already.

We in America and Europe are told to come and be ruled by Pharaoh Bibi –- Enough Already.

Bombs and more bombs will make us safe -– Enough Already.

Once we were slaves and now we are slaves again -– Enough Already.

Beat up the stranger in our midst –- Enough Already.

And American Jews look on and say nothing, as they have said nothing for decades -– Enough Already.

Let us feast on our bitterness and loss. Let us gulp down the whiskey so we can forget.

Next year leave Jerusalem alone.

Hilton Obenzinger

Hell no!
The time for remorse would have been
when my husband was yelling to breathe,
that would have been the time for him
to show some type of remorse,
or some type of care for another human being's life,
when he was screaming 11 times that he can't breathe.
So there is nothing
that him or his prayers or his anything else
would make me feel any different.
No, I don't accept his apology,
no, I could care less about his condolences,
no, I could care less.
He's still working,
he's still getting a paycheck,
he's still feeding his kids,
and my husband is 6 feet under
and I'm looking for a way to feed my kids now.

Every time you see me, you want to
mess with me. I'm tired of it.
It stops today.
I'm minding my business, Officer.
I'm minding my business.
Please just leave me alone. Please.
Please don't touch me. Do not touch me.
I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't
breathe. I can't breathe.
I can't breathe. I
can't breathe. I can't breathe.
I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
I can't breathe.
I can't breathe.

Below is an incantation of No Thanks to complement the list of Thanks I posted earlier. Add to it - it's incomplete. And now I'm signing off from Facebook to huddle together with friends and family, and eat up and shut up. I hope everyone enjoys the meal and the season.

No Thanks

No thanks smallpox blankets, No thanks Dawes Act, No thanks Jim Crow, No thanks “No Jews Allowed,” No thanks Ferguson dead young black men, No thanks pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t have boots, No thanks soldier boy dead or broken, No thanks invasions, No thanks working for pennies, No thanks Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, No thanks Mississippi Goddamn, No thanks fracking, No thanks Wounded Knee, No thanks "Chinese Must Go," No thanks ruined soil, ruined crops, ruined people, No thanks r**e, No thanks hate and violence, No thanks Wall Street gougers, No thanks skimmers and cheaters, No thanks John Birch Society and the Koch Brothers they spawned, No thanks "No Irish Need Apply," No thanks that people are forced to work on Thanksgiving, No thanks Black Friday, No thanks "No Dogs or Filipinos Allowed," No thanks bogus loans, fake jobs, hateful politicians, No thanks border vigilantes, No thanks everything for sale, even souls, No thanks dead forests, dead lakes, dead oceans, No thanks monster storms, No thanks to police murders, No thanks for fake democracy, No thanks for everything that we’ve done in America to keep ourselves from becoming the promise who we hoped to be.

Thanks to those who keep the promise alive, no matter the hell we create for ourselves and the world.