In strange times, it seems poems help me find my way.
I thought that all week, teaching and writing and thinking, friends in and out of town.
On Sunday at Judson, Micah preached about the Gospels and Walt Whitman’s poem, “Mannahatta.”
“I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas,..
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men!”
Some days, it does feel like my city.
Reading that poem, Micah seemed to connect a story we’d traced all week long.
Tuesday
We talked at Barbes, a bluesy cover band performing in back. When to go to Mexico or Bilbao, when to leave the states, who killed horse wessell, Brooklyn College, how nuts it all is.
A new book arrived at the door, Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language."
Wednesday
Kate Barnhart, my hero, came to my trauma informed practice class to talk with the students about thirty years of trauma informed practice with homeless lgbt youth. What a star. Story after story of YELL Youth Education Lifeline zaps at the Board of Ed, bearing witness to homophobia and political violence, to running New Alternatives for LGBT Youth, question after question, challenge after challenge. 'Our clients run away from countries or states where they will hurt you if you are gay,' says Kate. She told a story of a client who was tortured, still bleeding in his behind, as Kate listened. That's where the complex trauma takes shape, says Kate, the ongoing traumas. It's almost a sacred process of listening to trauma stories, says Kate Barnhart. This is a lifetime commitment.
How do you find meaning, asks one of our students.
‘In Tikkun olam,’ says Kate, healing a shattered world, repairing. it's not ours to finish the work, neither are we to abandon it.
Ending class, we read:
A-litany-for-survival by Audre Lorde:
“when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.”
Useful words in a time when many feel like they cannot, should not speak out.
Thursday
Others see no other choice but to speak out.
"Say it loud. Say it clear, immigrants are welcome here," said elected officials, trade unionists, and clergy, during our direct action to block ice vans at 26 Federal Plaza on Thursday.
"ICE out of NY!!!!"
“No human will ever be illegal!”
“Up up with liberation, down down with deportation,” say organizers, we won't stand by while ice abducts our neighbors. Neither should the leaders of New York.
Some eleven elected officials, as well as sixty others took part in the action, risking arrest, another fifty documents, and providing legal support.
The Professional Staff congress of the City University of New York, wrote:
“Happening NOW: NYPD is arresting peaceful protestors including PSC leadership who are demanding ICE release all immigrants detained at 26 Federal Plaza. Inside the building, ICE is detaining elected officials for doing the same #NYvsICE #ICEoutofNY
NOW is the time to make your voice heard!”
Arriving home after the action, people were talking about boycotting Disney and Hula after corporate caved, letting Jimmy Kimmel go.
“Bye bye Hulu. ‘Ok, your subscription has been cancelled…’" I posted after cancelling, thinking about the actions of the day. It's not funny anymore, a friend said yesterday during the arrests. Disney is facing a backlash.
Right wing accused of new censorship over the Jimmy Kimmel firing.
As Masha Gessen wrote:
Masha Gessen writes in today's New York Times column.
"When your country strips you of rights and protections, it tells you that it no longer recognizes you. Other times, you realize that you no longer recognize your country. People leave; families rupture along political lines; friendships shatter; people and institutions that used to be widely admired are vilified, and yesterday’s villains are sainted; familiar faces disappear from the public sphere; an aggressive conformity takes hold; the material conditions of life change.
The indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show signaled just such a shift in landscape. The news tells us that we are moving from one country to a different, autocratic one. The television shows us: This country looks different, sounds different and feels different. A familiar face and a familiar voice vanish. Some people turned on their televisions on Friday night to see a memorial to Charlie Kirk when they expected to see a comedian welcoming his next guest.
What unites the many actions of the Trump administration, from the sledgehammer it has taken to government programs to the demonstrative cruelty it has built into immigration raids, is that they transform the daily physical, economic and psychic experience of life.
Trump is remaking the country in his image: crude, harsh, gratuitously mean. The ongoing attack on civil society, which his administration plans to intensify in the name of Charlie Kirk, is a part of this program. Civil society makes life more livable. The administration’s message is that the work of civil society no longer belongs in this country."
Yet, civil society seems like it's not going anywhere.
At least it felt like that over the weekend.
On Friday, I found myself on the way to coney island with some friends thinking about it all…
At the make billionaires pay rally, the #TrillionairesforTrump made an appearance as the #BillionairesAgainstMamdani veering from tragedy to farce to absurd, Megabuh explained 'someone has to stand up for fossil fuels. We're here for the #williamspipeline.' Standing there, a young climate activist screamed '128 billionaires don't pay their taxes.' You are making our point,' said one of the billionaires. Another activist calling himself the Merchant of Arms of the Dark Side of Impossible Wealth explained 'we're not going to let a charismatic, articulate, young man with deeply popular good ideas about making the city affordable stand in the way of our profits.' At this point, the trillionaires in yacht gear started to chant, 'Zoran what a pity, we tell you who runs the city.' a woman in a ball gown who dubs herself Boughy Bitch added, 'we are billionaires against Mondami. We are billionaires against Mondami. He supports a rent freeze. we are for the opposite. he said' 'you don't have a home, we say get a loan!' ‘Childcare, we don’t care, We say have an au pair.! looking around at the march, she wondered, 'where is the vip section?'
At the march, jay walker chanted, 'tax the rich, tax the motherfucking rich!' 'we need teachers. We need books. we need the money the billionaires took.'
After the march, we converged at Siempre Verde community garden, to share poems on the theme of Gaia. Wendy greeted everyone. Anne reminded us not to double dip our chips. Let there be no regrets. The songs and stories are restless. let the earth continue to dream…’ read ann from joy horjo, the spirit of this rock we call home. Ron read his poem of the exaltation in equatorial chad. i read from dead poets, the maverick room, the portrait gallery called existence, and my meditations on gaia... ray read from his poetry collection, on believing in magic, 2007, recalling a spider who came to stay, on metamorphases, 'he waxed poetic of being a man. rest in peace fly, 'next life stop by again.' Federico read a monologue about Berlin, 'the spree is full of dead bodies from all the wars.' Colin read from jomo schwartz. Wendy read Typewriter Tales at 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden!
I offered my beat collection for others to read. 'why ruin a nice afternoon?' said baby c. Recalling the theme of Gaia, I read a....
message to gaia... im.sorry... lo siento
... I think it's time for the great supplication...
falling to our knees, begging for forgiveness
between that old american sadness, and madness, might be time for supplication...
sorry for the plastics, the bottles in the ocean...
sorry for the news
sorry for the toxins
sorry for the williams pipeline
sorry for the plastic tires
oh gaia... lo siento
For the rest of the afternoon, we explored the garden, popping around the east village, full of musicians singing, up to village works, stopping for chinese, off to the boiler room, to club cummings, for a tea dance on a Saturday.
Sunday
At Service at Judson, Micah recalled the week, preaching about Whitman, our direct action, Colsin Whitehead, recalling The Gospel According to Luke 16: 1-13 (The Inclusive Bible): The Parable of the Shrewd Steward Jesus said to the disciples, “Subordinates can’t have two superiors. Either they’ll hate the one and love the other, or be attentive to the one and despise the other. You can’t worship both God and Money.”
For Your Meditation: “There is no logic to New York City’s geography, but there is a logic to its spirit.” − Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York
From Brooklyn to Princeton to Staten Island and back, we talked all day, exploring that geography of the mind, of the spirit, one conversation at a time.
Monday,
Jimmy Kimmell is back on the air.
Myla Goldberg and Quince Marcum were a delight
@ Barbes.
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