Law and Order

Justice is a young girl locked in a cell torch without light a green-tongued judge is her torturer. The keepers of justice extract the girl's heart feed it to their blue god the war machine black people die. In the reddened streets split black skulls plant roaring seeds a different garden of law and order.

--Ed Stone



Paul Robeson

played pro football but he wouldn't play hard ball with whitey. Loved beautiful women. Loved beautiful white women, which is illegal. He's red and Black, way too hot for the '50s. In D.C., Hollywood, and Peekskill, the Klan nearly lynched him. At his career's height, the FBI took away his passport. On his deathbed he insisted that the CIA tried to poison him— not in Mississippi or in Alabama but at a party in 'godless' Russia, for god's sake.

--Maggie Jaffe

Robert Earl Mack

42, laid off, charged with the murder of Michael Konz, 25, a 'human relations counselor,' hired by General Dynamics to represent the Corp. against rank and file. Mack has 24 years on the line assembling Tomahawk Cruise Missiles in sunny San Diego, voted 'America's Finest City' by the Big Money. Mack's lawyer will offer a plea of insanity. If found sane during the shootout, Mack, who is black, who is black, will fry a lighter shade of gray, even if Amnesty International calls the electric chair, 'barbaric.' Mack, his eyes 'bulging like golf balls,' according to the L.A. Times, said: 'They just stole 25 years of my life. What was I supposed to do?'

--Maggie Jaffe

Mr. Fulmer

had a satyr’s soccer-ball stomach, flaming red hair and beard along with a redhead's quick temper. Somehow, he conveyed his faith in us as complex diminutive humans. One time he even allowed us to scream at each other and to jump on our desks, for no good reason except for our imprisonment in south Brooklyn's P.S. 203. Our rebellion was (I think) his pedagogical design. During the roaring Sixties, I read in The New York Post that a few of his neighbors torched his house, murdering his wife and son, yet their adopted child, who was black, survived the blast.

--Maggie Jaffe

To Paul Robeson

They don’ let us sing our songs, Robeson, Eagle singer, Negro brother, They don’t want us to sing our songs.

They are scared, Robeson, Scared of the dawn and of seeing Scared of hearing and touching. They are scared of loving The way our Ferhat loved. (Surely you to have a Ferhat, Robeson, What is his name?)

They are scared of the seed, the earth The running water and the memory of a friend’s hand Asking no discount, no commission, no interest A hand which has never paused like a bird in their hands. They are scared, Negro brother, Our songs scare them, Robeson.

Reprinted from Paul Robeson: The Great Forerunner New York, International Publishers

--Nazim Hikmet

My Life in USA

I am not my color. I dislike being picked on every day, being insulted, because I am not white. I tell myself I am not welcome in this world. I come from a rich family. I also come from a poor family. I travel a lot but I live in the USA. I always think that I was born to make everybody's life like hell!! Sometimes my life is just boring, but most of the time, my life is hard. Every night I think about these things. Why can't people respect me for who I am, and stop judging me for the color of my skin!

--Luis Carlos Pereira Reprinted from Blue Collar Review www.partisanpress.org

The Wrong King

It's the wrong King the wrong president an evil puppet swindled into power over the voice of the people but this is different -- The wrong King not the Elvis impersonator on the beach but much worse -- The wrong King That familiar face adorning January eyes set wide on the promised land of justice seems an impostor a pretender to the dream, a one dimensional doppleganger. Despite the preacher's and politician's shallow acknowledgments and the recognizable visage this is not the King that called his country 'the number one purveyor of violence in the world' or that called for a guaranteed annual income. Not the King that talked of the 'triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and war' so popular but unmentionable in these times. No, the face looks right but the message is all wrong. They're confusing Martin with Rodney 'Can't we all get along?'

--Al Markowitz Reprinted from Blue Collar Review www.partisanpress.org