Occupoem
by Ken Burch
This
was
A manger,
Humble place of birth
On a midnight
More rainy
Than clear
Of the new culture;
Culture of hope;
Culture of life;
Culture of RESISTANCE.
Born
In the first cry of an infant
Conceived in our minds,
By people.
By these people
By we, the People
Who are rising
To keep from falling
People who refuse to accept that
that
which is
is all
that can be.
Those people
These people
And that IS the threat
The TRUE threat
That we posed,
And STILL pose.
The closures
were not about
“sanitation”,
“safety”,
Or “crime”.
They were about
Us
People
joining
with
people,
people
whom had not met before
might never have met
might not see each other again.
Joined, in this moment,
In glowing
Glowing,
Gargantuan gatherings.
Gathered
To say
We will live
We will defy
The orders
Given each day,
To drive each other
Into the grave..
The more of us
And longer we remain
The more we show
That those
Who seek to live
Not just to hand
Undeserved splendor
To those
Without life.
Those
Who try to rule
Our souls
Those
Who will never see us
Those
We will never see-.
Will find out
despite the
smirks,
sneers,
scorn,
of the 24 hour hate channels,
that WE
were never alone
were never a tiny few
were never outnumbered,
that WE
if anything,
Vastly outnumber
Outlive
Out-breath
Out-love
Out-dream
Those who pay
And
Those who are paid
to assassinate the world’s soul.
With
Semiautomatic rounds
of
lies and spite-
That WE
Who are caring for
The infant
nation of spirit
born in the cold,
the rain,
the darkness,
the tents of the night,
swaddled in the warmth
of our will
Will show,
through anger,
rage,
magic,
joy.
That we,
the discarded
disregarded,
disrespected
Majority
of the living
and the dying
Can remove the walls,
smash the barricades,
cross the borders,
within ourselves
and without ourselves.
And then
We will live
Finally
For our own sake,
And
For the sake of life,
And for the song
We can fill this life with-
And we will finally allow
This ancient
Yet always newborn
world
to sing its true song.
Born on the Oregon coast, Ken Burch has lived and worked mostly in Southeast Alaska, in a family of blood, a family through marriage, and the larger family we all share. Have a nice cup of coffee, world.
Ron Ecklund produced and engineered the audio recording.