.
Remembering
Speaking truth to power
Fighting fire with fire
Keeping alive to fight again
the battle if not the war
There are many ways to resist
witnessing
testifying
putting money where your mouth is
body on the line
a monkey wrench in the works
Many ways to prepare
remembering
the body bags
the mustard gas
the Kamikazes
Ghost Dancers
suicide bombers
remembering
Buchenwald
Hiroshima
Rwanda
remembering who paid
for surgical strikes
smart bombs
strategic rapes
tactical bombers
death squads
mass graves
There are many ways to resist
lying down on the job
lying in
lying in wait
instead of just lying
remembering
Pearl Harbor
the Gulf of Tonkin
the Bay of Pigs
the Pueblo, the Maine
Abu Ghraib
Guantánamo
the broomstick in Brooklyn
Rodney King in L.A.
the ace of clubs the king of diamonds
the pentagon the tower
connecting the dots
the poppy fields to the oil fields
the cotton fields to the coke plantations
boardrooms to party platforms
bank accounts to body counts
world banks
world trade organization
world trade center
world market
stock market
slave market
new world order
self-interest to vested interest
interest rates to tax breaks
sweat shops to laundered money
to keeping up with the Joneses
civil rights to human rights
birth rights to last rites
remembering
what wasn’t on TV
what isn’t on the history channel
Operation Chaos
Project Phoenix
Operation Mindbend
debt debit deficit doubt
Project Artichoke
Project Naomi
Project Monarch
the High Arctic Auroral Research Project
the harp angels don’t play
remembering who you are
remembering who you aren’t
Bio:
An internationally-recognized toxics activist for many years, Michael Gregory's poems have appeared widely online and in print journals. He is the author of several books and chapbooks, including most recently, re: Play (Pudding House 2009). Mr America Drives his Car: Poems 1978-2010 is forthcoming from Education in Reverse Press.
(author retains copyright)
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