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Matthew Harlovic Jul 2017
i am leaving soon
so forgive me if i speak bluntly
but what are we achieving in this country?
to think, we hung the moon and stars.
i’m stung by the pungent stench of cars.
fix the carbon sink or tend to the garden.
lend a hand out to those who are starving.
Darwin would loathe our progress.
i thought old growth was both
a blessing and a curse
but things only worsen
the more we nurse them.
clip the wings of a serpent

© Matthew Harlovic
watched A Day The Earth Stood Still and was inspired
Scarlet McCall Oct 2016
Wayfarer,
walk with me
down the open, crumbling road.
We’re two surviving souls--
billion year old
molecules binding
our hearts, muscles,
bones and nerves winding--
let us go back to the beginning,
before the time of sinning,
to the start of our creation,
before government or nation,
to find the garden and lose regarding--
regain our innocence.
The sun, rain and wind will test us--
we’ll build shelters of hides and bones,
pick berries and sharpen knives with stones,
play bone flutes and gut-stringed lutes,
and **** nothing without reason
and prepare for each change of season.
We’ll take our water from the glacial melt.
Our fashion will be the furry pelt.
Of course, we’ll remember poem and song--
for they were never wrong;
art was blameless.
It was the only thing
“Civilization” left us.

We’ll spark fire with pegs and strings
whirring, friction, small kindlings
into fire; we'll sit round and tell our history--
marvel at our ancestors’ folly, what mystery...
We’ll write dramas and dance;
we will honor this second chance.
English we will remember.
And French and Arabic, Latin and Hebrew.
We’ll start a new language, or two.
We’ll wash and sew condoms from intestines;
this time, what we’ll invest in
will be sustainability.
No need to propagate the earth--
it is fruitful enough already.
Only to be in harmony, a place neither above, nor below, others--
the animals and plants, who are our sisters and our brothers.
Wrote this a few years ago and it's already out of date. The arctic ice is melting along with most glaciers. The apocalypse, or the death of life as we have known it, will be here in about 35 years. Hopefully I'll be dead then because this is just a fantasy of what I would like to happen.
if it is not possible for you to have a dialogue about whiteness being a mental illness
after and during the actuality of slavery
pick one of the fields of study
within the dissociation of whiteness
to keep you occupied
until further notice
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Liberty-Elan-Gregory-ebook/dp/B01B8XQYBG?ie=UTF8&keywords;=elan%20gregory&qid;=1459178234&ref;_=sr_1_1&sr;=8-1
this country
America
has a lot to learn
from those that have survived
the making
and unmaking
of whiteness
this existential
exponential
build up
of advocacy
for noticing humanity
when it steps out of line
Siren Coast Jul 2016
Every morning I go underneath the Earth
I leave the trees behind to walk upon concrete
A utopia of green and blue
For a dystopia of gray and black
Trying to maximize my worth
A weekly void to fill
Means to survive
Off of hands I do not want touching me
They have the tightest grip around my throat
More is not enough
Everything I have I turn over
To breathe air that they poison
Drinking the water they have polluted
I scream and I shake and I cry
How can they do this?
Why is everyone okay with this?
Do we have no say?

Blind power
I look around me
You are all staring at a small screen
A device they have handed you
You even paid them for it
And now it distracts you
From the poison they feed you
A revolution! Please, I beg
Around me blank stares
She wore it best, he's dating that *****
Wake up I plead
There is no power left of the people
Willing wrists
To be cuffed
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