Fire in the Hole
The powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
Daily before our eyes
men and women speak truth to power,
power crushes them,
they rise up again and again –
the powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
Daily before our eyes
spoiled executives flaunt
staggering profits while
staggering veterans beg for alms –
the powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
Daily before our eyes
arrogant legislators slash
funds for education while
prisons strain to contain more youths –
the powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
Daily before our eyes
scowling agents of morality
insert themselves into the
private cracks and crannies of our lives –
the powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
Daily before our eyes
decent working people,
having done the right thing all their lives,
find they have nothing to show for it –
the powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
The Mayan calendar ends in the year
twenty-twelve: an election year.
Some believe the world will end as well.
But if it continues, hear this:
the world of Obushma and Rottemney,
Bi(nLa)den and Palahuck,
Trumpette and Gingrinchvitis, is ending.
It ended, in fact, on Nine-One-One,
when the Twin Towers tumbled,
and the scraps of our freedom
were swapped for “security”;
ended when the feds
bailed out “securities” firms that
bilked retirees’ accounts;
ended when the promise of peace
became the reality of multi-war;
ended (finally?) when
before our eyes we saw
poor downtrodden camel-jockeys
stand up in the dust of centuries
and say “No more!”
Are we free people or slaves?
Will we be “Left Behind”?
The powder keg is full
and the fuse is lit.
Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog
22 May 2011
[Mariann G. Wizard, a Sixties radical activist and contributor to The Rag, Austin’s underground newspaper from the 60s and 70s, is a poet, a professional science writer specializing in natural health therapies, and a regular contributor to The Rag Blog. Read more poetry and articles by Mariann G. Wizard on The Rag Blog.]
Right on and well written.
Not only poetic but a spot on analysis of explosions and revolutions “over there.”
But where is the keg hidden here in the belly of the beast?
Who holds the zippo that will start our long over-due revolution.
Dear Anon – the powder keg is in all of us, and the lighter in our hands. The fuse is burning now, silently, in the dark.
Fortunately, poets are not responsible for tactics or logistics! The coming revolution will be led by women and men under 45, that is all I feel sure of, because they have the most to lose if we go on as we are, and still the most to gain by setting things right. From those I know, they are an even more idealistic generation than we were in the 1960s, but with many fewer illusions to begin with, and many fewer hang-ups such as perpetuating gender or ethnic inequity. Of course they will have their a-holes, too, no generation is perfect, but there is no humongous generation gap between the 1960s radicals and today’s activists; rock’n’roll is still out common tongue.
Yes I agree-but the fuse is ever so slow.
mps