Poems of Mark lipman

 

THIRD POPULIST MANIFESTO

             for Lawrence Ferlinghetti

 

The sons of another

          Whitman awake

Retake the word

Retake the song

There’s no time now

          for sleeping till noon

                   in your shuttered rooms

There’s no time now

          as New York crumbles

                   beneath our feet

                             under the trampling

                                      of a nation of sheep

          as Kabul is wiped

                   off the map

          as the Palestinian

                   follows in the footsteps

                             of the Native American

 

          gone with the echoes

                   of a thousand mother’s cries

                             everyone asking “Why?”

 

Not for freedom

Not for democracy

But for a new kingdom

ruled by philanthropy

 

Yes, blood is thicker

          than water

but not as thick

          as oil

 

How many must still be killed

          to keep the drills alive?

 

Where are the new Ginsbergs

          the new Dylans

          the voices of a new generation

          with their cut-up jeans

          and back packs?

 

Where are all the great

          minds of today

Still roaming their

          dark alleyways?

 

Yes, Ferlinghetti is still alive

          but so too is Dick Cheney  

The usurpers are still

          in the House

And all the voices

          remain silent

 

How many Kyotos

          must be rejected?

How many Johannesburgs

          over-ruled by a party of one?

How many rulers selected

          and promises broken

 

before we stand up

and speak out

and take back

what should be ours

          guaranteed by birth?

 

Whitman’s wild children

          are all alive and well

So put down your glasses

          and pick up your pens

Get on your buses

          all going “Further”

And let your voices

                   be heard.

 

 

 🍁

  

For All the Mothers’ Tears

 

For all those unseen

hiding beneath the rubble

whose children are double amputees,

just statistics for the war machine

 

For all those who can’t speak,

who’ve been silenced and shut out

from the national debate

 

For all those made homeless

by the bombs of indifference,

targeted by sniper and settlement,

the red ink in the ledgers

of a blood-for-profit regime

 

For all the hostages

lingering in black sites and prison cells

held without charge or trial

hidden away from the spotlight

 

For all those being starved

and left hungry, those guilty

of being born, of being a thorn

in the side of Democracy

 

For all those who’ve ever

picked up a rock

or spray painted graffiti

who’ve lifted up their voices

and their middle fingers

to the capitalist patriarchy

 

For all those who’ve decolonized

their brains and stood

on the right side of history

 

This poem is for you.

  🍁

THE BORDER CROSSED US

 

I step onto land

where my ancestors

planted our family tree

over 1,000 years ago. 

 

I have known no other sand

between my toes

under my feet

this is my only home.

 

One day though

a stranger arrived

sat down at our table

drank our wine

ate our bread

raped our women

burnt our village

then declared me illegal.

 

The color of my skin

the language on my tongue

the god that I chose to believe in

demonized in order to justify their cruelty.

 

The freedom that I enjoyed

my right to self-determination

gone, victim to yet another

military occupation.

 

My peace,

simply a broken olive branch

cut from the tree they tore down.

 

My home,

rubble, beneath the tracks

of their bulldozers.

 

All I have ever had

all that I’ve ever known

all, taken from me.

 

My blood,

turned into their gold.

 

My heart,

broken from generations

of lies and betrayals.

 

If you cut me, do I not bleed?

 

Crushed, beneath the boot of technology

by persons with no soul or body to touch

 

with no heart to feel

 

eyes, blinded by hatred

ears, closed to any reason

mouths, shut out of fear

 

comfortably tucked away in their beds

while human beings die in the streets

under the batons and artillery shells

of a militarized police state

 

Wrapping oneself in a flag

worse yet, a religion

while making excuses for genocide

sanctioning the murder of children.

 

News actors continue to blame the victims

force feeding us lies, calling us terrorists

because we were born onto the land that they coveted.

 

Who is the real enemy,

the one who believes in something different than you,

or the one who uses what you believe in to change who you are?

 

There is no escaping the soul staring back in the mirror

regardless of the shifting lines on some map

human rights have no borders.

 

 

Mark Lipman, founder of the press Vagabond, the Culver City Book Festival, the Elba Poetry Festival; winner of the 2015 Joe Hill Labor Poetry Award; the 2016 International Latino Book Award and the 2023 L’Alloro di Dante (Dante’s Laurel - Italy), a writer, poet, multi-media artist, activist and author of fourteen books, began his career as the writer-in residence at the world famous Shakespeare and Company in Paris, France (2002-2003). Since then he has worked closely with such legendary poets as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Hirschman on many projects and for the last twenty years has established a strong international following as a leading voice of his generation. He’s the host and foreign correspondent for the radio program, Poetry from Around the World for Poets Café on KPFK 90.7FM Los Angeles. As Mark continues to travel the world, he uses poetry to connect communities to the greater social justice issues, while building consciousness through the spoken word.