OCCUPY WALL STREET POETRY ANTHOLOGY COMPILED BY STEPHEN BOYER AND FILIP MARINOVICH AND THE PEOPLE OF OWS CREATED BY THE PEOPLE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE PEOPLE OF OCCUPY WALL STREET AND THE POETRY ASSEMBLY THIS ANTHOLOGY IS AN ONGOING EVOLVING ANTHOLOGY THAT IS CONSTANTLY GROWING. AFTER ZUCOTTI PARK WAS RAIDED IT SEEMED PERTINENT TO GET THIS DOCUMENT ONLINE. THIS ISN’T THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT. IT WILL BE FURTHER UPDATED SOON. IF YOU’D LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PLEASE EMAIL POEMS TO [email protected] WE LOVE YOU. Taking Brooklyn Bridge By, Stuart I apologize Walt Whitman, when I was young you spoke to me, I would sit in the old church cemetery surrounded by the tombstones of patriots reading you out loud to the stray cats and you came to me, you sang to me, showed me myself in everyone and everything, taught me a democracy of the soul, to live in the rough and tumble world with dignity, to grant that same dignity to the people around me. I apologize Walt Whitman, I let the song fade into the din of everyday life, there are excuses I could make, I will not make them, I did not carry your song through the streets, I worried about the strange looks and awkward postures I might see in those who needed to hear it. I got complacent, I was informed, yes, informed, I read the papers, watched the news, debated over dinners, knew full well since the days of Reagan what was happening to the common people like me that you taught me to love, watched as we were turned from citizens to consumers to the dispossessed, and I did not rise up, I did not take to the streets, did not risk or struggle, did not sing your song that you so generously gave me. Over the years I saw the passage of events, I began to wonder why I and so many others did not pour into the streets when our votes were laughed off and our presidency stolen by fools and plunderers, I wondered why I and so many others did not challenge the brigand government when they led us into the unjust war, did not let them know that the battle we would wage here at home against that corporate sponsored, oil sopped war of lies would be far more passionate and just, I began to wonder why so many citizens did not see that they were being sold out, duped with the frivolous, hyped by the hollow, bankrupted by spurious ideologies. And this unrest began to churn within me, as I watched the fall of the people, watched as the great common people were being baited and cheated by robber barons who would delight in rekindling the gilded age, to gloat from their palaces at the miserable, and I wondered how this could be, how I could be watching the country I grew up in, the heirs of independence, the tough, decent, imperfect, hardworking people I venerated lose the freedom that so many before us fought and died for. There was a silent book on the shelf, your book, Walt Whitman, I had kept the exact same copy I discovered as a youth, inert on the shelf, the song you taught me muted in the dark, and I was the same as that book, a song stifled in the closed pages, serving no one, a dusty decoration. Then I saw the people who occupied Wall Street on the news, heard their chants, read their signs, was drawn by their passion and courage, and I realized I had watched and wondered for far too long, that I was perhaps even more guilty than those who had perpetrated and even profited from the disaster they now expect us to pay for because I had done nothing. My family and I came to stand with the occupiers, to be one with them, to raise our voices and march with them, so, that, at the very least, true freedom and real democracy would not be ground down without a struggle, that we could look in the mirror and know we fought for the just cause, not only for ourselves, not only for America, but for all people, now and one thousand years from now, to tell humanity, to teach them, that freedom is not purchased on a shopping spree, does not glow on a TV screen, cannot be put on a credit card, freedom is a responsibility that one must choose to bear each and every day and no one can carry it for you, that you must fight for the freedom of others in order to have it yourself. I came to atone for my apathy, I came to teach the future vigilance, better to be loud, be awkward, be dirty, be flawed, you who are to come, make the people uncomfortable because they are too timid to join you, make the leaders uncomfortable because they know you are unafraid, I tell you that it is better to be one of the great democratic people than it is to be a lord or a peasant. We began to march from Liberty Square, a place that now fully deserves its name, toward the Brooklyn Bridge, and we chanted and sang and called to those who watched to join us, and there was a feeling in the air, a passion that joined together every hearty soul, we all knew we were on the side of the just, that we meant no harm to any person, that we sought no more than what was fair and sought it not only for ourselves, and several times on the march my eyes welled with tears, my emotions overwhelmed by the chaotic, brilliant beauty of those marchers, of that which we marched for. The long line of the protestors wound beneath the towers of those who would squander the world, devouring all that is good with their insatiable appetites, making our way to the Brooklyn Bridge and when I saw the towers of the bridge before me I started to laugh, what better way to pay back Walt Whitman than to honor his song at the crossing to Brooklyn, to march across the bridge over the waters he crossed so many times, the bridge that poets have embraced as a symbol, not only of ingenuity and progress, not only of endeavor and perseverance, but as a symbol of democracy, of the great crossing of humanity from tyranny to freedom. They are here Walt and I am with them, the African father pushing his daughter in a stroller, she holding a sign that proclaims she too will fight for her future, the old man singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ with wit and irony, the veterans who know only too well of betrayal, the young girl with bright fiery hair whose strong voice chants, “We got sold out, banks got bailed out!” the unshaven college boy who has slept in the park for two weeks seizing the future with determined hands, the middle aged lady, vibrant and experienced, rallying us to raise our voices, the mother and daughter holding a sign that reads – America, Can you hear us now! All ages, all races, all voices, songs and chants overlapping, strangers becoming comrades. As the marchers cross the bridge on the pedestrian walk way we see that a radical few have veered off onto the road, blocking the traffic, arms linked, faces resolute, an infectious spirit fills the air, there is no way I can not join them, my family and I climb the rail, with many hands reaching out to help us, we jump down and walk with them, this is not a day to be a pedestrian, it is a day to agitate. Many more come clambering down and you can feel the tension rise, the police growing in number, the people marching, earnest, a point has to be made, the bridge has to be taken, and then we see the barricades before us, the crowd jamming together as those behind us keep coming forward, the police now closing in from both sides, we are trapped not quite half way across the bridge, and many are firm that they will not just leave, some climb on dangerous girders to escape as others call out to them to be careful, others sit and get ready for their arrest, some are confused, not knowing that they would come to this end, I see an older man, the first I think to be arrested and there is both strength and weariness on his face as he glares at the police with fearless eyes, and though as it turned out we had been stopped there and would go no further, our true momentum was not halted, I knew we had triumphed, because we had taken action, the people had risen, and with no violence or hatred, we had shown our willingness to risk and struggle for our liberty, and while it might seem a small thing to some, an event to go largely unnoticed, not as bloody as a battle, or news worthy as a riot, I knew that we had come to the Brooklyn Bridge and given it the meaning poets had sought to give it in their words, we had brought the rough, sacred spirit of democracy to the Brooklyn Bridge, we had restored Whitman’s song to it’s very birthplace, for he had called to us, the future, in his song, he sings to us now, he knew that we would be here, he stands with us, chants with us, and here I am on the Brooklyn Bridge on a day as important as any day that has ever passed, watching Walt Whitman above the bridge towers, sounding his barbaric yawp above us, calling down the sign of democracy, calling us to remember, not just one amazing day, but the task to come - Sing on – Sing on – Sing on! WE WILL SEE This is a translation from the Urdu / of a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz / a great 20th Century South Asian poet. / 2011 is Faiz birth centennial. / He died in 1985. / This poem, written in 1979 in San Francisco, / foresees the Arab Spring / and, by extension, Occupy Wall Street / So, listen up. —Translated by Rafiq Kathwari That promised day Chiseled on tablets of pre eternity It’s inevitable We, too, will see Pyramids of tyranny Floating like wisps of cotton The earth shaking and rattling Beneath our stomping feet Swords of light flashing Over the heads of oligarchs Idols flung out From sacred monuments Crowns tossed into the air Thrones demolished And we the pure and the rejected (Standing in Liberty Square) “Our hands blossoming into fists” Will rend the sky with a cry “I am Truth” Which is You as well as I And the beloved of earth will reign You I We Us Caribou By, Vivian Demuth 1. a crevassed grey antler with orange trim of lichens fragment of caribou. Two-pronged, not heavy for thick- necked female of Rocky foothills. This disgorged body part of pregnant caribou, flies at birth offering of bony art waiting to fall 2. woodland caribou in small groups, families easily spooked endangered since 1985 80-150 years for forests to grow lichen for caribou. Risk factors: logging, coal mining & oil & gas exploration risk a chance of loss 3. splayed hooves click through death’s graveyard running panting clicking humans scratch together word fragments car(e)-i? bou? Who? Try caribou rights Globally, people are pawing with ardent green pens fervent foundations of community rights & shattering ground swells of nature rights birthing offering hoping Nine Black Robes . . . By, Steve Bloom September 2011 . . . occupied (I have been told) by human beings; we were hopeful for a while but in the end discovered: It cannot be true. The human beings, instead, remained, for the duration, standing vigil outside the prison’s gates. Nine black robes occupied by those commonly referred to as "Justices." Yet how can this be when the human beings search for justice throughout the evening but still cannot find it? Allow me to recall a time, long ago. I was too young, then, to understand— could not, therefore, explain it, not even to myself, certainly not to my teachers as they lectured, enthralled by "the rule of law," which, we were informed so often, stands in contrast to "the rule of men." and so Troy Davis waited for more than four hours in a death chamber built according to their rules. Today, however, I comprehend well enough to compose these lines, appalled by a "rule of law" which, it is revealed once again, stands in contrast to the rule of justice, so that we may attempt, through poetry, to consider the depth of our tragedy. The medical team waited too, poised to begin its infusion of the lethal potion. Nine black-robed Injustices of the US Supreme Court deliberating deep into the night while a nation of human beings holds its breath and others, who merely masquerade as human, drum fingers, impatient to proceed. Finally the word comes down: You may carry out your execution. And so the choice is revealed once again: to continue with this masquerade or finally become human; to welcome murder or embrace life; to accept their "rule of law" or impose a new rule, of justice. And it says here that this choice is up to you, because today the word has finally come down.