april fool birthday poem for grandpa

Today is your
birthday and I have tried
writing these things before,
but now
in the gathering madness, I want to
thank you
for telling me what to expect
for pulling
no punches, back there in that scrubbed Bronx parlor
thank you
for honestly weeping in time to
innumerable heartbreaking
italian operas for
pulling my hair when I
pulled the leaves off the trees so I'd know how it feels,
we are
involved in it now, revolution, up to our
knees and the tide is rising, I embrace
strangers on the street, filled with their love and
mine, the love you told us had to come or we
die, told them all in that Bronx park, me listening in
spring Bronx dusk, breathing stars, so glorious
to me your white hair, your height your fierce
blue eyes, rare among italians, I stood
a ways off listening as I pour out soup
young men with light in their faces
at my table, talking love, talking revolution
which is love, spelled backwards, how
you would love us all, would thunder your anarchist wisdom
at us, would thunder Dante, and Giordano Bruno, orderly men
bent to your ends, well I want you to know
we do it for you, and your ilk, for Carlo Tresca
for Sacco and Vanzetti, without knowing
it, or thinking about it, as we do it for Aubrey Beardsley
Oscar Wilde (all street lights
shall be purple), do it
for Trotsky and Shelley and big/dumb
Kropotkin
Eisenstein's Strike people, Jean Cocteau's ennui, we do it for
the stars over the Bronx
that they may look on earth
and not be ashamed.


diane di prima


(do your homework, be surprised)
DANTE
TRESCA
SACCO AND VANZETTI
BEARDSLEY
WILDE
TROTSKY
SHELLEY
KROPOTKIN
EISENSTEIN
COCTEAU

what’s real?

What are you all doing here, come on, let's hear some stuff.
I've got a nice little caudre of varied and interesting minds assembled and I would love to see what they have to say.
Remember, the objective of this blog is to compare ideas and get results.
so....
I think I've gotten the ball rolling.
Also remember the rules, everyone be nice to other leftists.