Poetic Art And Politics

Poetic Art And Politics
© Surazeus
2018 06 17

I cut random words from the dictionary
and paste them into sentences of nothing
on photos of well-designed living rooms
I snip from home and garden magazines.

When I find photos of parents and children
who were separated by government agents
when they crossed from Mexico into Texas
I cut out their faces twisted by anguish.

When I find the painting by Georges Seurat
called A Sunday Afternoon on the Island
of La Grande Jatte, I paste it on a board,
and stare till it dissolves in rainbow tears.

I paste the faces of parents and children
kept in large cages by government agents
over face of each person in the painting,
but they are still locked in detention centers.

I staple the Sunday Afternoon painting,
with the faces of detained immigrants,
on long stick, and walk along busy streets
to stand before the White House gate all day.

"Where are the children," I shout at the cars
of senators and bankers gliding by,
because there is no God up in the sky,
and stand there past the falling of the stars.

I laugh when people say, "This is not us,"
and remind them how the children of slaves
from Africa, native Americans,
and Japanese were imprisoned or sold.

"The children of slaves brought from Africa
were taken away from mothers and fathers
and enslaved on plantations far away
never to see their loved faces again."

"The children of native Americans
were taken away from mothers and fathers
and forced to attend poor government schools
where they learned English and attended church."

"The children of Japanese immigrants
were bussed to live in barbed-wire prison camps
while we fought against Japan and Germany,
though children of Germans stayed in their homes."

"Now children of Hispanic immigrants
who journey across vast jungles and deserts
are taken away from mothers and fathers
and locked in cages of detention centers."

"You cannot declare that this is not us
because we have been doing this very thing
to people of color for centuries,
so we must act now to stop this abuse."

My collage of A Sunday Afternoon
with faces of Hispanic refugees
is hung in the downtown art gallery
where rich people sip wine and talk art theory.

I hitchhike to the large detention center
where I pound on the glass door and demand
they free the children to be with their parents,
but police lock me in jail overnight.

After they send me on the bus back home,
I write a long rap poem in rhyming verse
and read it at the slam poetry contest
where I win fifty dollars in third place.

At Association of Writers Conference
I join the panel discussing relation
between poetic art and politics
to talk about the power of activism.

"The Nazis took children away from parents
when they shipped Jews and Gypsies to prison camps,
so our grandfathers fought second world war
to defend liberty and justice for all."

"How are we using the weird power of art
to highlight injustice of powerful men?"
I ask with earnest hope for real solutions,
and stare at faces staring back at me.

I sit in my car on the Brooklyn Bridge
and watch the river flowing in star light
while people abuse and exploit each other
so I want to leap in the Lethean stream.

Instead I drive to work at the warehouse
where I package books people buy online,
then drive home where I watch the Game of Thrones,
and plot the revolution while sipping tea.