Ten-Speed

My friends, I am on fire. Black and red and gold ribbons on my bike handlebars stream backwards in the wind as I downshift into low gear, cruising fast and furious down an asphalt river cutting through the city. I travel at the speed of my legs and arms, spinning wheels against the stone, feeling free, enjoying the sun on my face.

There is simply too much to tell. In a few hours, I’ll be gone on tour again. This time, to the CLIT festival in Minneapolis, which I’m really looking forward to. I haven’t even started to pack and it’s almost morning. The past few days have been a blur of protests, video, shows and hanging out with friends. And even taking over the streets with Critical Mass, something I haven’t done before. I’ve been recruiting and training a video team, getting ready to cover street actions and social justice events for cable access. Things are happening, and the energy is high as we all wonder what is going to happen during the national conventions of the Democrats (the Lesser Evils) in Boston and the Republicans (the Really, Really Evils) in New York City.

Everything now is building steam, gathering momentum, but by the time this is published, the Democratic National Convention in Boston will have come and gone. And I’ll be back from tour! So, next month I will report on media in the streets and all the kick ass raging bands.

For now, I leave you with a poem. Yes, a poem. This month, I have found the writings of Langston Hughes, and his words sing with my heart. I first fell in love when I read a few scribbled words of his, scribbled onto the wall of the bathroom of AS220 in Providence. What a day! Not only did I get to see BEHIND ENEMY LINES for the first time, but I was also struck by a pen.

I find the poems of Langston Hughes cut through the bullshit. He takes aim at the cloud of racism and class that hangs over this country like a poisonous fog, pointing to the boils on the face of smiling “liberty.” He wrote and published through the 1920s, up until the 1960s. What a time frame! I am now the proud owner of his collected poems, some 700 pages in all. This is from his last work The Panther & the Lash. I personally recommend standing up, reading the poem out loud, and then screaming into the wind. Until next month;–Erika.

War

The face of war is my face.

The face of war is your face.

What color

Is the face

Of war?

Brown, black, white–

Your face and my face.

Death is the broom

I take in my hands

To sweep the world

Clean.

I sweep and I sweep

Then mop and I mop.

I dip my broom in blood,

My mop in blood–

And blame you for this,

Because you are there,

Enemy.

It’s hard to blame me,

Because I am here–

So I kill you.

And you kill me.

My name,

Like your name,

Is war.