1.21.10
"Infinity doesn't interest me
not altogether
anymore"
If you love the People they have the opportunity to love you back. It's a simple sort of calculus. The kind of human mathematics that eschews the infinite abstraction of numbers for the reality of you standing in front of me. And face to face we exchange our human resources that can carry us into a beautiful, and just, future.
And perhaps the governments that have allied to wall us out of Palestine, and wall Palestinians in, know this quite clearly. Perhaps they understand that the economy of human resources, of direct exchange between people, each to each, nullifies their power. Maybe that's why Dictator Mubarak's wife "offered" to allow our material aid through, but kept our selves out. We were the largest solidarity delegation in human history--1400 people from 43 countries. There's no way to account for the returns on a mission of this size and nature. No way to predict, or control its possible outcomes. And in systems built upon tightly orchestrated actions and reactions, our unlimited potential is terrifying.
Though these governments succeeded in blocking our entry, their victory can only be seen as a temporary one. Here in Cairo we have been able to open cracks in their walls. We are too creative, too persistent, too many, and too real to be perpetually denied.
We will keep pushing, and keep organizing. We will keep teaching, and keep photographing. Writing and singing. Our skills and desires are infinite. And this interests me a great deal!
Poem on a New Year's Eve
~June Jordan
Infinity doesn't interest me
not altogether
anymore
I crawl and kneel and grub about
I beg and listen for
what can go away
(as easily as love)
or perish
like the children
running
hard on oneway streets/infinity
doesn't interest me
not anymore
not even
repetition your/my/eye-
lid or the colorings of sunrise
or all the sky excitement
added up
is not enough
to satisfy this lusting admiration that I feel
for
your brown arm before it
moves
MOVES
CHANGES UP
the temporary sacred
tales ago
first bikeride round the house
when you first saw a squat
opossum
carry babies on her back
opossum up
in the persimmon tree
you reeling toward
that natural
first
absurdity
with so much wonder still
it shakes your voice
the temporary is the sacred
takes me out
and even the stars and even the snow and even
the rain
do not amount to much unless these things submit to some disturbance
some derangement such
as when I yield myself/belonging
to your unmistaken
body
and let the powerful lock up the canyon/mountain
peaks the
hidden rivers/waterfalls the
deepdown minerals/the coalfields/goldfields
diamond mines close by the whoring ore
hot
at the center of the earth
spinning fast as numbers
I cannot imagine
let the world blot
obliterate remove so-
called
magnificence
so-called
almighty/fathomless and everlasting
treasures/
wealth
(whatever that may be)
it is this time
that matters
it is this history
I care about
the one we make together
awkward
inconsistent
as a lame cat on the loose
or quick as kids freed by the bell
or else as strictly
once
as only life must mean
a once upon a time
I have rejected propaganda teaching me
about the beautiful
the truly rare
(supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
is beautiful
for instance)
but
the truly rare can stay out there
I have rejected that
abstraction that enormity
unless I see a dog walk on the beach/
a bird seize sandflies
or yourself
approach me
laughing out a sound to spoil
the pretty picture
make an uncontrolled
heartbeating memory
instead
I read the papers preaching on
that oil and oxygen
that redwoods and the evergreens
that trees the waters and the atmosphere
compile a final listing of the world in
short supply
but all alive and all the lives
persist perpetual
in jeopardy
persist
as scarce as every one of us
as difficult to find
or keep
as irreplaceable
as frail
as every one of us
and
as I watch your arm/your
brown arm
just before it moves
I know
all things are dear
that disappear
all things are dear
that disappear
"Infinity doesn't interest me
not altogether
anymore"
If you love the People they have the opportunity to love you back. It's a simple sort of calculus. The kind of human mathematics that eschews the infinite abstraction of numbers for the reality of you standing in front of me. And face to face we exchange our human resources that can carry us into a beautiful, and just, future.
And perhaps the governments that have allied to wall us out of Palestine, and wall Palestinians in, know this quite clearly. Perhaps they understand that the economy of human resources, of direct exchange between people, each to each, nullifies their power. Maybe that's why Dictator Mubarak's wife "offered" to allow our material aid through, but kept our selves out. We were the largest solidarity delegation in human history--1400 people from 43 countries. There's no way to account for the returns on a mission of this size and nature. No way to predict, or control its possible outcomes. And in systems built upon tightly orchestrated actions and reactions, our unlimited potential is terrifying.
Though these governments succeeded in blocking our entry, their victory can only be seen as a temporary one. Here in Cairo we have been able to open cracks in their walls. We are too creative, too persistent, too many, and too real to be perpetually denied.
We will keep pushing, and keep organizing. We will keep teaching, and keep photographing. Writing and singing. Our skills and desires are infinite. And this interests me a great deal!
Poem on a New Year's Eve
~June Jordan
Infinity doesn't interest me
not altogether
anymore
I crawl and kneel and grub about
I beg and listen for
what can go away
(as easily as love)
or perish
like the children
running
hard on oneway streets/infinity
doesn't interest me
not anymore
not even
repetition your/my/eye-
lid or the colorings of sunrise
or all the sky excitement
added up
is not enough
to satisfy this lusting admiration that I feel
for
your brown arm before it
moves
MOVES
CHANGES UP
the temporary sacred
tales ago
first bikeride round the house
when you first saw a squat
opossum
carry babies on her back
opossum up
in the persimmon tree
you reeling toward
that natural
first
absurdity
with so much wonder still
it shakes your voice
the temporary is the sacred
takes me out
and even the stars and even the snow and even
the rain
do not amount to much unless these things submit to some disturbance
some derangement such
as when I yield myself/belonging
to your unmistaken
body
and let the powerful lock up the canyon/mountain
peaks the
hidden rivers/waterfalls the
deepdown minerals/the coalfields/goldfields
diamond mines close by the whoring ore
hot
at the center of the earth
spinning fast as numbers
I cannot imagine
let the world blot
obliterate remove so-
called
magnificence
so-called
almighty/fathomless and everlasting
treasures/
wealth
(whatever that may be)
it is this time
that matters
it is this history
I care about
the one we make together
awkward
inconsistent
as a lame cat on the loose
or quick as kids freed by the bell
or else as strictly
once
as only life must mean
a once upon a time
I have rejected propaganda teaching me
about the beautiful
the truly rare
(supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
is beautiful
for instance)
but
the truly rare can stay out there
I have rejected that
abstraction that enormity
unless I see a dog walk on the beach/
a bird seize sandflies
or yourself
approach me
laughing out a sound to spoil
the pretty picture
make an uncontrolled
heartbeating memory
instead
I read the papers preaching on
that oil and oxygen
that redwoods and the evergreens
that trees the waters and the atmosphere
compile a final listing of the world in
short supply
but all alive and all the lives
persist perpetual
in jeopardy
persist
as scarce as every one of us
as difficult to find
or keep
as irreplaceable
as frail
as every one of us
and
as I watch your arm/your
brown arm
just before it moves
I know
all things are dear
that disappear
all things are dear
that disappear
Comments