I had several years of witnessing violence.

by Jimboloco

Posted to Poetry and Politics on 2004-05-14 01:18:00

It seems like I just couldn’t get away from it.
In Vietnam, the aftermath of massive ecocide.

But then after that, back home in the U.S.A. during the 1970’s I saw:
2 young white Boston cops beat and stomp a poor black man into the snow and walk away smiling….

a platoon of white and Hispanic Miami Beach cops beat a black Vietnam Vet double amputee with clubs their faces hidden inside helmets and he was smiling….

a black guy shoot down another black guy then stand over him pumping in bullets while jumping up and down surrounded by a crowd of onlookers then run away uncaught…

riding the bus home down Woodward at 3 am in Detroit on the street a big fat kid jumping up and down stomping a small boy with shadowed superfly adults standing aside and motionless. “He already daid,” somebody spoke. the bus kept rolling. “How could anybody do that?” i screamed. walked home down at the inner city university to my alcoholic basement.

Ya know, during this past year, from before when the Iraq debacle started and after giving a protest speech at the gates of MacDill Air Force Base in Jan. 2003, when I started having reemersion into depression and despair, especially when the war and the hoopla all started, I started also, doing inner work.

Some of that has been on LitKicks, reading, responding, writing and expressing.
A lot of it was dealing with the emotional process itself.

I am no less sensitive than before, not calloused, with a greater capacity for revulsion, outrage, but also a bit less damaged or frazzled, more composed and centered.

It’s kind of like why we did LSD or other ways to disconcert ourselves and deprogram ourselves, for the reordering process.

It is 4:15 AM. Today I have off from work. Am doing a CPR renewal class this morning and then this afternoon, under two large banyon trees beside the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts will be standing a silent vigil with a group called women in black and holding a veterans for peace flag. What this will accomplish in direct response is unknown. Maybe a media coverage. Maybe we’ll be shat upon by the large Florita boids or by a passing reactionary.

Or maybe we will become more centered and empowered emotionally to continue our dissent.



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