Save
the Frescoes That Are Us
for Edith Parker-Kerouac
These
murals would have existed here,
in Detroit, even
if Diego had never painted
Them. The sweat
and labor of this city,
Along with the
sacrificed blood
Of its workers,
would have stained
These walls. No
matter what.
This town,
beautiful, lonely child
Broken by too
much post-industrial
Hard luck, is
always, once again,
Resurrected with
deep convictions.
Our longevity
cuts deeper than forever;
It’s far longer
than Rivera’s Lenin-headed
Mural-Rock
Center-Manhattan, torn
Down by those
city slicker liberals in NYC
Beachhead of
American culture and civilization.
Not here ! The
politics of Detroit
Go beyond
arguing fresco vs. classic,
Or any something
vs. anything. Here we deal
In a culture of
collective energies,
Beating union
heart. Here, it’s always
Work—Not talk.
We know that
Talk is cheap,
but work is
Forever. We know
That building is
more
Essential to our
survival than politics
Is to our
reality.
Mass
Production
When we look
closely inside
The tunnel of
the American
Factory, we see
gears turning
In disorienting
prophecy, it is not
Salvation that
first catches our eye.
Diego Rivera
said "Industry is
Our Salvation!"
What he dreamed
Was a much
different nightmare
Of wires and
gears and smoke-
Stack lightening
than the burning sleep
Deep within the
cavernous factories
Of our broken
hearts where we are left hollow,
And alone on a
cold highway
Of separation
and pressing discrimination.
The American
spirit has long been
Strangled at
some untraceable point
Between the
ideal and the real. Now,
We are hungry
and we are waiting
For our justice
to pass through
This system of
mass production. The wheels
Grind slowly in
a world of industrial darkness
Where the
murderous dollar suffocates
Our hope with
progress, and where
Our dreams twist
in fitful sleep.
Our futures lie
stricken in
Inanimate
blankness as we wait
And wait, like
our ancestors did,
for a change
that surely moves
As slow as blood
through the thick
Grease heart of
oil fed machines.
Straw Boss
Dream
Hidden within
the center
Of the
industrial crush
Of oil, metal
bearing shavings—
The American
Dream.
Drowned,
breathless, stomped
Into
hopelessness, strangled anger
The boiling pot
of liberty blackened
By the greedy
heart of elitism
And power. From
a straw boss
Dream, we work
to escape
The factory
nightmares of lonesomeness.
Workers’ souls
are cathedrals
For harboring
bruised labor, broken
Hearts and
endless malaise. Alone
Our fear is work
Not "fear
itself." Democracies
Are open market
prisons
Where we all
sell ourselves
Out to those who
would
Otherwise rob us
blind.