Backwards Barrel

[Guest Esperanza Xochitl]

I don't want to live for your bland future of a blank page

The playful colors of words erased in your so-called new and dawning age

If your radical banner covers up unrelated beauty for the sake of your revolution

Throwing away every emotion as part of your final solution

I say your revolution is a gun with the barrel put on backwards

It creates no change but burned paintings and blanked-out words

To make all the same by silencing our different stripes

Making some sameness so you can seem right

Well I'm making my own banner that is oh so pretty

I'll carry it dancing through the streets of your city

And I'll never buy into your marches and rallies so plain

Because I don't need a world where I'm painted the same

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I wrote this poem while reflecting on what annoys me with certain "radical leftwing groups" (and rightwing groups too) who want to make everything about their ideology. I feel that if they had their way their bland monochromatic views will turn on anyone outside their norms as it fits into their progression of sameness. I don't usually get too blatantly political in my works but sometimes our rights as human beings of various stripes and our right to be ourselves depends on getting political. That said, I feel this is a personal poem too, as it is based off my personal feelings of alienation within leftwing political circles.

[Guest Donna Jean]

I love what you're saying here, Hon ...

And I totally agree...

Radical in either direction is still radical...

Very good poem...

Oh, and I like Phil Ochs, too!

Huggs

Donna Jean

[Guest Esperanza Xochitl]

The folksinger I referenced was actually another one of my favorites, David Rovics. I love Phil Ochs and he is another one of my favorites. If I could travel back in time I'd totally want to date Phil Ochs. He was very attractive and inteligent in his day. There are others amongst my favorites; Anne Feeney, Evan Greer, Ani Difranco, Dar Williams, Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger

On another note, I still consider my self radical in the sense of being a pink bloc anarchist, I feel I was gearing that poem towards the Authoritarian tendencies.