N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 3 : S p e c i a l E d i t i o n

L o n g P o e m M a s t e r p i e c e s o f t h e P o s t b e a t s

PAMELA TWINING

Notes From The Front

“As soon as the TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone) is named (represented, mediated), it must vanish, it will vanish, leaving behind an empty husk.” ~ Hakim Bey

I

sleeping on stone

the very bone permeated by earthen chill

even through layers

and layers

we celebrate the Awakening

long overdue

eyes open

4 am hike to mcdonald’s

incidental corporate sponsor

of the new Revolution

providing the only Free bathrooms

for the masses

then back to cold comfort

and middle of the night discussions

of Transformation and Insurgency

and Peaceful Revolt

the Spring of our Passion

Zings among the glass-walled canyons

reverberates through the subconscious

of the never sleeping City

and pierces the Morning

of the american fall

sunlight now slanting

through the sheltering trees

of Liberty Square

it’s about Time!

recognized by so Many

with Hope barely remembered

magnified by People and People and People

it’s about Time!

says a note paper-clipped

to the shirt pocket

of a middle class businessman

it’s about Time!

witness the pink and golden and chocolate

surging crowds diverted by police

but honking waving

flashing the Peace sign

Today! Again! Now!

the Revolution may not be televised

but it is Tweeted and Facebooked and Yootoobed

the ethos of a new generation

filling the ether untapped

unavailable to earlier uprisings

stories unfiltered

by the mechanized press

who spin subversion of the subverters

but barricades will not stop

this Truth!

the Voices of the Future

are raised in defense of this country

and the World

and the planet

a chorus swelling

as they capture the imagination

of Lost generations

searching for the way Home

to America

II

early morning sunlight falls in bars

between the endless march

of buildings

not yet touching numberless bodies

stretched out on stone

patchwork quilt

of homeless by choice

layers of desires

ribbons of ethos

woven together in a random palette

brighter than the massed fall flowers

planted before

this was the People’s Park

are you ok?

do you need anything?

Blankets? Coffee? Food?

sun slanting in

the children awaken

the business of the city’s day

clashing and pounding

in ears still buzzing

from late night speeches

endless earnest discussions

only stilled as one by one

we were called into the arms

of deathlike sleep

line for the bathroom

micky d’s

thousands and thousands served

corporation facilitating

the anti-corporate State

of Affairs

alive and well in Liberty Square

but not without a bathroom

thus are we still hostage

to random industrial consciousness

in spite of All not expecting

the midnight sweeps

feral policemen

clothed in nightmare

our numbers swollen

by the chronic homeless seeking food

hungry ghosts

bound

to cockroach night streets

bound

by the web of no Change

(spare change is never enough)

there is a Silence deeper than No Sound

of dreams unspoken

Rights unclaimed

the Sound of Fear

and a Despair so fathomless

the Spirit withers Dark

but the Rising Sun is a bell

and we are the Vibration

sounding the end

sounding the end

sounding the end

of what?

III

we came from aging hipsters

not dead yet

of our own furies and excesses

not broken

by lies and betrayals

nor fooled by the false rationality

of the deniers of history

from the youth of the post-hip

generation of anomist wanderers

not mainlining Internet

or lost in the mazes

of electronic journeys and virtual slaughters

from the children

for whom Community is an archaic dream

vanished into the mythology

of ancient storytellers

from the Vast heartland

bewildered by the world collapsing

around us

to the tune of consumerist jingles

urging the celebration

of the new Terrorist Epoch

with shopping sprees funded

by phantom employment

as the homes we thought we owned

disappeared into the pockets

of those who wrote the fine print

at the bottom of the Social Contract

that we must have forgotten to read

we created a space

of Absolute Freedom

temporary but Joyous

high on the power of immediate and unfiltered

Words and Ideas given life

by the voices of thousands

amplified by the Voice of us All

we came to the library at Liberty Square

the loaded tables helter skelter

grubby hands greedy minds

starving to share

hungry to inhale understanding

and excrete the madness

of Lost generations

become Avatars in the new millennium

conduits of Justice Truth & Law

only Dreamed on this Stolen continent

offering bodies like cordwood

to Fire the New Revolution

but would we truly choose to die

for the sins of our father’s gullibility

who bought into the Enlightenment

daydream

the Perfectibility of Humankind?

would we be shot down in the street

if it comes to that

for delusions of possible equality

illusions of polity

in a world where the Good Life

always comes at someone else’s expense

where the fortunate bless the Dawn

from the aching shoulders

of the unremembered?

where are the Poets

of this Massive Undertaking?

where are the street corner ranters?

the singers of anthems?

the criers of Outrage?

the voices of those who labour

unrelentingly

not only for themselves

but for All whose Rights must be protected?

the library is torn now and scattered

dispersed and destroyed

by thieves of Wisdom

pickpockets of Compassion

twisters perverters of Revelation

imprisoners of Inspiration

deathdealers evildoers

storm troopers

hidden behind Kevlar

and automatic weapons

enacting the Will

of those who spin definitions

filter Reality and sanitize dissent

for whom ambivalence is Weakness

selflessness is for chumps

and respect is reserved for the Victors

leaving the artists the children the losers

the madmen and the dreamers

to seed the outskirts of civilization

with poetry & revolution

Wild new growth sprouting

from cracks in the sidewalk

overtaking blank city blocks of street shoes

oxford cloth

flannel and pinstripe

the indefinable anarchic masses

insistent on the diffuse Ideal

the Unexplained

continually Explored

Uncomfortable bed of political nails

that will never let us Sleep

2012

[Part I of Pamela Twining’s “Notes From The Front” was previously published as "notes from the front" her second chapbook, Utopians & Madmen. Part II appeared as "Liberty Square" in Big Scream 51. Reprinted by permission of the author.]

Pamela Twining lives in Woodstock, where she raised her children and studied organic farming and healing with herbs. She has read her poetry in many venues, alongside Andy Clausen, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Mikhail Horowitz, Anne Waldman, Thurston Moore, often accompanied by Cosmic Legends. Over the years she has developed a very personal style, sometimes tender and lyrical, sometimes brutally frank, resonating with the wisdom of her partially Native American heritage. Her recent work includes i have been a river… Selected Poems of Pamela Twining (Heyday Press, 2011), utopians & madmen (dancinFool Press, 2013), and the forthcoming A Thousand Years of Wanting; the Erotic Poetry of Pamela Twining (Shivastan Press, 2013).