Never Mind the Red White & Blue! My Colors are Black Brown & White! My Colors are All of You!
An epic poem by Wolf Larsen
The poem begins in an up-and-down rhythm with a slave ship going up and down in a stormy sea, the poem rattles & BANGS & creeks with the sounds of chains BANGING and the ship creaking, the poem continues when those same ships are later “recycled” during the potato famine for a new cargo called the Irish…
The poem is African drums BOOMING & beating & BOOMING & beating, and Irish music joins the African drums, and then the slave owners take away the drums from the black people and the black people play saxophones & trumpets in harmony with bluegrass/country music…
The poem walks along the waterfront in New York City where the Irish & other white ethnics carry the cargo from the ships up the docks on their broad shoulders, then the poem walks along the waterfront in New Orleans where black broad shoulders carry cargo from the ships up the docks to the warehouses…
The poem sweats under the hot sun of the south, the poem sweats with the black sharecroppers sweating under that hot sun, the poem suddenly begins churning & churning with the noises of the textile mills where the Québecois (French-“Canadian”) & other white ethnics turned the cotton into cloth and then the poem begins whirring & whirring with the sewing machines on the lower east side of Manhattan where the Jews turned the cotton into clothing in tenement sweatshops…
The poem is a stormy sky over immigrant tenements from the 19th century to the 21st century, the poem is a stormy sky over sharecropper shacks and the poem is that same stormy sky over housing projects & repossessed homes & trailer home “parks”…
The poem has the sooted face of a miner, and the poem is the nine year old face of my great uncle in a textile mill working 12 hours a day six days a week, and now the poem has the white face & the black face of two little children of two families being evicted from their homes…
The poem SCREAMS & cries out with a latino child crying & SCREAMING as she watches an immigration officer taking away her mother for deportation, the poem is a mother crying over the dead body of her son in a casket who was SHOT to death by the police, the poem is the sound of police billy clubs BEATING over the heads of striking workers...
The poem is the sound of a police revolver shooting a bullet into a young black man’s back, the poem sighs with the sad nod of a young woman accepting her boss’s indecent proposal because she wants to keep her job, the poem cries with a middle-aged woman crying who has just been laid off from her job along with a thousand others…
The poem raises its fist with a thousand people in the streets raising their fists and chanting slogans against war – chanting slogans against miserly wages – chanting slogans against medical care that many cannot afford – chanting slogans against yet one more black man shot down in cold blood by the police…
The poem seethes with anger & anger & ANGER for years & years with a population of millions seething & seething…
The poem seethes with the white man sick & tired of working for miserly wages, the poem seethes with the black man sick & tired of getting shot by the police, the poem seethes with the latino man sick & tired of all these deportations, the poem seethes with the women frustrated with inequality…
The poem worries that those who hold the atomic button cannot be trusted with it, the poem is HUNGRY with all the hungry people, the poem is worried with all the WORRIED people…
The poem knows that the future MUST be different, the poem knows that the way things are cannot stay the way they are…
In the poem the worker & the veteran shake hands and march in protest together! In the poem the soldiers refuse to fire upon the workers – and the soldiers & workers embrace and fight together against the war profiteers – against the war-hungry politicians…
The poem sees the future of black, white, & brown workers UNITED! The poem sees the future where black, white, & brown in blue civil war uniforms will finish the last Great Civil War. The poem sees the future where the next Great Civil War will not be about north or south, but about those who work rebelling against their masters! The poem sees the future where those that work shall triumph over those that inherit their wealth! The poem sees the great democracy of those that work, and everyone will have work at good wages, and the poem sees the future where those that were wealthy are no longer wealthy and they too will have to work…
Copyright 2014 by Wolf Larsen
Advance permission is given for the reproduction & distribution of the following poem, provided that credit is given to its author, that no alterations are made in the poem, and that the purpose of such reproduction & distribution is not hostile.