in school they told me to keep politics and cursing
out of my poetry. from elementary education
to post-graduate work at the university,
no one really cared to teach me how to write.
certainly not the pretentious prats
who'd somehow forgotten
our words are swords
in the flesh of the State.

they told us flowery metaphors
were welcome, but critiques of the systems
that would eradicate flowers from planet earth
were choked by the weeds
of existential philosophies,
too much
for the average reader
to comprehend.

i was taught to keep polysyllabic words like "neoliberalism,"
"xenophobia,"
and "corporatocracy"
out of rhythmic verse
because the bourgeoise
want to read something ****.

witness the revolt of the proletariat.
i'm embracing a literacy
anointed in Angela y Davis's legacy,
"i am changing the things i cannot accept."
i'll fight like hell and bleed
the imagery from every stanza
if that's what it takes to show
that all art is always already resistance.

to be an anarchist
in the twenty-first century
is to refute practically every vestige
of contemporary society.
to embrace paradoxes and be skeptical,
practicing critique, an endeavor
Foucault termed "reflective indocility."
liberty and equity in equal measures,
an individual amidst a community.
hopeless, but still fighting.

the answer to the ills afflicting us
are available if we avail ourselves
immediately, parting ways
like divorcees,
finally severing all ties
with this American sham
of false democracy.

the answer is neither on the left
nor the right. we've peeked behind the scenes
and seen the corporate-state is held
on a short leash by the oligarchy,
bound and gagged, nothing but a plaything
satisfying the master-slave binary.

if we're to triumph over the bigotry
rising like seas bloodied by refugees
fleeing the endless wars the U.S. has instigated,
we'll have to get creative again.
dare to dream utopically, living
as if we're already free,
seeking liberty, equality, and solidarity.

so consider this a manifesto of sorts:
until i go to greet death as an old friend,
happily released from daily suffering,
i'll sit at my typewriter and bleed
for the least of these,
then climb to my feet and fight
to take back the ******* streets.