The Perfidy Report

Day 76: Other/Murder

“Those people”

are the two most dangerous words

in any language.

Any two people

from anywhere

can create a child together,

who combines the best and worst

of both

into someone not seen before

but wholly familiar

if only we

do not pronounce those words,

do not call them

Other.

The Other

is always one of “those people”—

an Other color, Other sex, Other gender,

from an Other country

or an Other neighborhood, an Other religion,

an Other way of seeing the world.

The Other, Those People,

Not Like Us

Not

Human.

 

If you hold the idea of

The Other

anywhere in your heart,

there is Murder

sitting right next to it.

 

–Harlem, New York, 13 April 2017

Day 75: Chewing Our Own Leg Off

Look, there's no one right way.

There's no orthodoxy of protest

or engagement or dissent.

Not everyone has the strength,

the chutzpah, the know-how,

the wherewithal, the whatever

to do what the rigid seem to think

should be done.

Children won’t raise themselves.

Meals don’t get put on the table

by magic.

Old bodies need some coddling.

Don't belittle anyone's effort.

We are each of us

just one small person.

But collectively—

in our marching writing teaching agitating organizing

—we're a loud and angry rabble

that makes bad leaders tremble.

 

No one

can pass the purity test

of ideological theory,

and if we cling to that alone

we risk killing others

for mere ideals.

That expectation

is no better than our enemies

and we tear each other apart with it.

Stop chewing your own leg off.

The trap you’re trying to escape

is in part

of your own making.

 

–Harlem, New York, 12 April 2017

Day 74: Winners Write History

 

 

If you don’t like it

change it.

If it doesn’t suit your purposes

lie about it

Make shit up

and call it “alternative facts.”

Pull it out of your ass

and tell us how sweet

it smells.

Hitler never gassed his people

—true, from a certain point of view;

what good Nazi would claim a Jew,

a Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Serbs, freemasons, Slovenes,

Jehovah's Witnesses, socialists, or the disabled

are people,

let alone their people?

Does it matter

if T-Rump insists

he had the largest inauguration crowd

ever, confusing his predecessor’s

with his own?

That he believes so many popular votes

were cast by frauds?

That in his mind, refugees

just hop on a plane

from whatever war-torn land they’re fleeing

and walk right into America?

That his henchmen, his minions

perpetuate it all?

 

Your own history

is disappearing

into the maw of his lies:

where you came from,

who you are,

what rights you have,

what our country

used to be,

the plans we had for it

in the future.

 

War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Trump is president.

 

Remember.

 

–Harlem, New York, April 11, 2017