FESTĂœNG AMERICANA
A book of Photography and Poetry from the Age of Surveillance.
1
2
FESTĂœNG AMERICANA
A book of Photography and Poetry from the Age of Surveillance.
3
(c) 2014. DANIEL PELLIGRINE. PHILADELPHIA, P E N N S Y LV A N I A
4
DEDICATED
TO ALL OF THOSE MY NATION HAS MURDERED, AND ALL OF THOSE WHO ARE YET TO COME.
5
6
FESTĂœNG: Name given by the Third Reich
during the Second World War, to fortifications which were to be held by any means necessary.
7
8
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION DESPAIR STRIFE OPPRESSION INJUSTICE REVOLUTION
7 11 22 28 36 44
9
10
INTRODUCTION The United States needs decent more than ever before, and while I openly admit to being a liberal, I still observe the fact that we need discourse and criticisms from both sides. This was the primary motivation behind me compiling this anthology, to put together in a single place, a plethora of works that truly agitate and instigate the mind. This is a new age, where we need tough questions, and it is in radical poetry that we find the most unrefined versions of these societal rebukes. Daniel T. Pelligrine
11
12
DESPAIR
13
N I A OIL R
A N A I S I OU L IN 14
earlier this morning chaos was seen showering the greed of men oil raining down on a louisiana town greed is good give us more corporate bank accounts will soar more capital to educate the mass exactly how fast can we change the liquid to gas and blow ourselves up apparently not fast enough some of the lighter crude oil can evaporate from the soil into the water cycle i’m told and increase profits ten-fold
why not extend the invitation of manifest destiny to every nation falling black heaven for free Frank DeFulgentis
15
TERRORISM
IAM WITH
16
We are accused of terrorism: if we defended rose and woman and the mighty verse ... and the blueness of sky ... A dominion .. nothing left therein... No water, no air .. No tent, no camel, and not even dark Arabica coffee!! We are accused of terrorism: if we defended with guts the hair of Balqis and the lips of Maysun if we defended Hind, and Da`d Lubna and Rabab .. and the stream of Kohl coming down from their lashes like the verses of revelation. You will not find with me a secret poem or a secret logos or books I put behind doors. I do not even have one poem walking down the street, wearing veil. We are accused of terrorism: if we wrote about the ruins of a homeland
torn, weak ... a homeland with no address and an nation with no names I seek the remnants of a homeland none of its grand poems is left except the bemoans of Khansa. I seek a dominion in whose horizons no freedom can be found red .. blue or yellow. A homeland forbidding us from bying a newspaper or listening to the news. A dominion wherein birds are forbidden from chirping. A homeland wherein, out of terror [ru`b], its writers got accustomed to write about nothing. A homeland, in the likeness of poetry in our lands: It is vain talk, no rhythm, imported Ajam, with a crooked face and tongue:
No beginning No end No relation with people’s worry mother earth and the crisis of man. A dominion ... going to peace talks with no honor no shoe. A homeland, men peed in their pans .. women are those left to defend honor. Salt in our eyes Salt in our lips Salt in our words Can the self carry such dryness? An inheritance we got from the barren Qahtan? In our nation, no Mu`awiya, and no Abu Sufiyan No one is left to say ‘NO’ and face the quitters they gave up our houses, our bread and our [olive] oil. They transformed our bright history into a mediocre store.
In our lives, no poem is left, since we lost our chastity in the bed of the Sultan. They got accustomed to us, the humbled. What is left to man when all that remains is disgrace. I seek in the books of history Ussamah ibn al-Munqith Uqba ibn Nafi` Omar, and Hamzah and Khalid, driving his flocks conquering the Shem. I seek a Mu`tasim Billah Saving women from the cruelty of rape and the fire. I seek latter days men All I can see is frightened cats Scared for their own souls, from the sultanship of mice. Is this an overwhelming national blindness? Are we blind to colors?
17
We are accused of terrorism If we refuse to die with Israel’s bulldozers tearing our land tearing our history tearing our Evangelium tearing our Koran tearing the graves of our prophets If this was our sin, then, lo, how beautiful terrorism is? We are accused of terrorism if we refused to be effaced by the hands of the Mogul, Jews and Barbarians if we throw a stone at the glass of the the Security Council after the Ceasar of Ceasars got a hold of it. We are accused of terrorism if we refuse to negociate with the wolf and shake the hand with a whore America Against the cultures of the peoples with no culture Against the civilizations of the civilized with no civilization America a mighty edifice with no walls!
18
We are accused of terrorism: if we refused an era America became the foolish, the rich, the mighty translated, sworn in Hebrew. We are accused of terrorism: if we throw a rose to Jerusalem to al-Khalil to Ghazza to an-Nasirah if we took bread and water to beleaguered Troy. We are accused of terrorism: if we raised our voices against the regionalists of our leaders. All changed their rides: from Unionists to Brokers. If we committed the heinous crime of culture if we revolted against the orders of the grand caliph and the seat of the caliphate If we read jurisprudence or politics If we recalled God and read verse al-Fat-h [that Chapter of Conquest].
19
20
We are accused of terrorism if we defended land and the honor of dust if we revolted against the rape of people and our rape if we defended the last palm trees in our desert the last stars in our sky the last syllabi of our names the last milk in our mothers’ bosoms if this was our sin how beautiful is terrorism.
if it will free the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and the virgin, Meriam Betula and the holy city from the ambassadors of death and desolation
I am with terrorism if it is able to save me from the immigrants from Russia Romania, Hungaria, and Poland
But after Olso, we no longer had teeth: we are now a blind and lost people.
Yesteryear The nationalist street was fervent like a wild horse. The rivers were abundant with the spirit of youth.
They settled in Palestine set foot on our shoulders to steal the minarets of al-Quds and the door of Aqsa to steal the arabesques and the domes.
We are accused of terrorism: if we defended with full-force our poetic heritage our national wall our rosy civilization the culture of flutes in our mountains and the mirrors displaying blackened eyes.
I am with terrorism
We are accused of terrorism:
if we defended what we wrote El azure of our sea and the aroma of ink if we defended the freedom of the word and the holiness of books I am with terrorism if it is able to free a people from tyrants and tyranny if it is able to save man from the cruelty of man to return lemon, olive tree, and bird to the South of Lebanon and the smile back to Golan I am with terrorism if it will save me from the Caesar of Yehuda and the Caesar of Rome I am with terrorism as long as this new world order is shared between America and Israel half-half
I am with terrorism with all my poetry with all my words and all my teeth as long as this new world is in the hands of a butcher. I am with terrorism if the U.S. Senate enacts judgment decrees reward and punishment I am with Irhab [terrorism] as long this new world order hates the smell of A`rab. I am with terrorism as long as the new world order wants to slaughter my off-spring. and send them to dogs. For all this I raise my voice high: I am with terrorism I am with terrorism I am with terrorism ...
Nizar Qabbani
21
the Immigrant Pity the poor immigrant, With no uncle, with no aunt And no family he can see All alone now he will be With so few jobs that he can take Will poverty be hard to shake Will he ever end up rich No, only with a lottery glitch And will a life of pain and drink Drive him to the very brink Or will this time so full of grime Drive him to a life of crime And will he ever find a wife Or will his life be full of strife Will gentle hands smooth out his hair Or is his fate the barbers’ chair No soothing voice for an aching head Just a bottle of booze and a lonely bed No hospital visits whenever he’s ill Just nurses with needles and pill after pill No loving caress, that to him meant so much 22
Now just an old memory he never can touch No welcoming arms or children’s glees Just a tired old dog all covered in fleas No breakfast in bed with the Sunday news Just four empty walls to echo his views No family Mass with the choir in full song Just a drink in the pub and a sad sing-a-long No visits from sons or daughters today Just a friendly drunk to usher away No cosy fire with logs all alight Just a one-bar heater to lighten the night At Christmas, no crackers or brandy pudd Just a T.V. dinner that looks rather rude No green Christmas tree lit up with lights Just the echoes of neighbours having their fights No walks in the wood or romps in the snow With no-one around there’s no-where to go So to live in this place and not drown in despair He will need to pursue a life full of prayer For left on his own in this awful land He surely will need some guiding hand
Radical Rooney
23
24
STRIFE
25
The AMERICAN INVASION OF IRAQ I am beginning to feel sick Of this policy of carrot and stick, When oil runs low in your stock You start attacking Iran and Iraq. You appease them on one side Take them on a mad ride And hit them from behind Without any fault to find. Today you have got the power But it can’t save you forever The world is quite because of fear It may one day turn against you my dear. Vikram G. Aarella 26
27
Honourable Exception Advice Heeded Aneyoshi Descendants
Aneyoshi ancestors carved tsunami warning in stone a love blessing warning standing warning descendants Aneyoshi quiet wise hamlet of respectful descendants Aneyoshi tightly knit community of listening descendants Aneyoshi where above tsunami marker people built homes honourable exception advice heeded Aneyoshi descendants all high built their homes wave unscathed warned in stone Terence George Craddock
28
29
30
OPPRESSION
31
Freedom Dont Turn Your Guns On Me! police state, aggravate, empty buildings on fire! aggitate, demonstrate, against the potent liars! poverty, humility, anger buys a gun. empty prayers, nobody cares, desperate on the run! freedom dont turn your guns on me! beat down, pushed around, still free. take my house, not my dignity! freedom dont turn your guns on me!
Eric Cockrell 32
33
THE SECRET POLICE
34
They are listening in the wires, in the walls, under the eaves in the wings of house martins, in the ears of old women, in the mouths of children. They are listening to this now. So let’s hear it for the secret police, a much misunderstood minority. After all, they have their rights, their own particular ways of seeing things, saying things, cooking things, they too have a culture uniquely their own. And we think they should have their own state where they could speak their own incomprehensible tongues, write their confessions, their own unknown histories, cultivate their habits of watching by watching each other, and fly their own flags there, at attention on parade in their medals at their monuments on their secret anniversaries, making speeches, singing praises to the God of Paranoia. Ken Smith 35
36
NSA Policy Is Wars Protecting reality in the world political situation is changing interesting but sadly disappointing welcome home realities National Security Agency can employ an extra ten thousand new recruits sparkling per year of operation in a post 9/11 recruit world ten thousand dedicated to spying no policy warrant taps required ten thousand new spying lying within invasive codes secrecy but hire a single guru of peace? no profit policy is wars protecting NSA numbered legal exemptions from law requirements disturbing time safeguarding oil wars spending Terence George Craddock 37
38
INJUSTICE
39
We Cannot Have Trust And Justice We cannot have trust and justice if we deny the truth If in the face of prejudice we do remain as mute Where one race feels superior to another there never can be trust Let us drink to equality and what is right and just In our narrow society where rank is seen as good And where the true meaning of equality by most not understood We cannot have equality and a fair go for all If not one prejudice free society of which one can recall In the 21st century we have not learned from the past For old prejudices and hatreds in our time seem to last As long as there is an underclass and as long as there is poverty We will never even take one step closer to equality The past may be behind us but the past from us not gone As discrimination, war and poverty are things that do live on. Francis Duggan
40
41
That Police World Like the morning sun, fresh and bright, Stalking his path to new awakened world, Filled with hopes of long day of toil and rest, Of commotions and peace, of creative unrest— I entered the new world with dazzle in eyes, With bounce in strides, music in voice To a buoyant reception of a thousand dreams. It was a vast world as far as eyes can see, Endless horizons around, unfamiliar to me, Beautiful, yet ugly, no plans or paths etched there, Though fertile, looked barren, dry and rugged; Land below, sky above, undistinguishable from afar; I tried to make sense out of this strange jumble, For, it is to be my land where I must settle. Wolfs and jackals in fight abound in the land, Fighting for crumbs of flesh all days and nights— Wild howls and shrieks of pulling legs of the other, Bawls to prey on shreds left away by stronger ones That live on own strengths and live a majestic life 42
And stalk all over the land though few, far in-between And bring happy relief for the mass of filthy canines. Cloistered in deep brood in my quiet cottage, Repelled by parasites, enamored by proud lives— That scattered gold strains on massive mineral rock Do bring value, dignity, beauty to the giant block— I sought counsel of those who live on own strengths; But alas, like a needle in haystack, few, far in-between, I seld found them nigh anywhere for real strength. Wolfs and jackals, fighting for crumbs of flesh, Those abound in the land, howl all day and night, Smelt my free thoughts and rejection of their breed; Envious of my state and furious of my right path, They mobbed my cottage, hauled me in a cruel night, Before I knew what, they sucked my innocent blood And preyed on my carcass and fought for every bite. Praveen Kumar in Shobha Priya 43
Then I am named Homeless i see several fires lick with their tongues all houses of envy and desire i see several winds beg the waifs a few drops of breathing i see several waters crystallize the arc of rainbow i see several rivers flow with their majestic disease of current i see everything look into everything still my country burns... still other countries bleed Dibakar Sarkar
44
45
46
REVOLUTION
47
I might be Edward Snowden I might be Edward Snowden,
Hiding in a Dungeon in Moscow or Sweden. My lovely country call me a traitor,
For being an under-covered contractor. I might have halted my clandestine in pain, But I did it with no political gain.
I have craved to live in a society free from the pinch of surreptitious surveillance, I besiege my country lording over other nations with its governance. I have been tagged as the whistleblower I am even more popular than 9/11, and the twin tower.
Lest, I am now charged for the theft of government properties, Deemed as espionage; but let’s all face this vague realities. I challenge any extradition from my fatherland
I am now a contrived fugitive in my motherland. I now seek asylum in many nations, And I have left my name on the lips of countless generations.
48
I might be that bird hovering around the Riga forest in Iceland, Or maybe my ruse is working, with my wings en-route England. I might still be that rat, hiding in a tunnel at Mira Hotel, Or maybe a covert operator with classified Intel from ‘Dell’.
They say I have hurt all national securities, For giving out classified information to my country’s adversaries. I am a Christmas gift that landed on Russian Soil I detest the western nations that gave my asylum a spoil. I might be EDWARD JOSEPH SNOWDEN, And I am not writing this poem under the pseudonym ‘GODSPOWER OSHODIN’
The moment is bleak because you think I can’t be Snowden But I can paint the portrait of thou next move; leaking it is forbidden.
Godspower Oshodin 49
Revolution, Resolution, Revelation Knowledge sweeps our mysteries away, Disproves attractive theories left and right; It undermines the grounds for firm belief, Impoverishes the visions and the dreams, Deflates pretense, cuts arrogance to size, And tempts us deeper into all these vices. I cannot think of any better vices Than those which carry ignorance away, Confounding fraudulence of any size And bigotry of any shape. How right It is that we should reach for sweeter dreams And not be addled by inane belief! And what is more inane than that belief Which sanctions, succors and defends the vices Of the ignorant, perverts the dreams Of minds which live in fear and run away From what they need and ought to have by right And only lack through small ambition’s size? The restless wishing to ascend should size Their chances up, examine their belief, Respect the bounds of reasoned wrong and right, 50
Rebuke their foibles, minimize their vices, Sweep their self-defeating pride away And build fresh schools for climbing to their dreams. What choices, when informed, our vaunting dreams Present us with, promethean, with a size Of vast dimension in their sights. Away, I say, with rancid obsolete belief! Risk more, lest we ourselves succumb to vices By our sloth: To err’s our well-worn right. And whence evolved our sense of wrong and right? Not from priests’ hindsight but poets’ dreams, Which priests condemned as rude unseemly vices. Our best telescopes can’t take the size Our universe commands, nor can belief Purloin the magic knowledge gives away. Cast not away our far most precious right: To share our best belief in dreaming dreams Not limited by size or savage vices. Richard St. Clair
51
Liberal democracy Would you cross the borders of nations and oceans, To spray the mighty waves of freedom and devotion, In which, all are the same under the hammer and constitution, Let us gossip about the possession of will and determination, That emerges from the thorny flesh of the cognition, As the bouquets and bunches of exponential vision, That can predict the weather of wealth in calculations, Man, they have done that in their backyard discussion, They have kept their kitchens at their entrance, Women are not at home to immerge in doubtful confusion, The Gods are not petitioned, challenged and needed donations, When they evolve from the innocence of tantric illusions, Would you travel across the borders of nations, To let us to taste your fruits of multiple variations, Those grow from the good soil of truth and obedience, but, we have to grow you in our own soil to see you in person, As many have done and succeeded for many generations.
veeraiyah subbulakshmi
52
53
They are afraid of a revolution, Revelations slay the oasis, They rush to clot the bleeding Loopholes struck open by anger The cursed man believes in fate, Wealth is for the desert frog They befriended rags way back. The maybach cruises by violently A sign the rains are miles away,
54
AfRAID oF
A harvested field that needs no urgency Hoes smile they are not eating the rock, Kids wave wondering unconsciously Malevolently it runs over a bump, Stars of cowry shells break the chains. The damned soul weeps with anger A collective solitude nearly breaks, Melodies so sweet soothe the race The case of justice hoping to breakaway,
A REVoLUTION Tightly squeezed by the mighty ones Parading in masks of peace, Revolt and call for the wrath.
Their eyes are red with lust They pounce on the pearl gates Now and then seeking fortune, Their alarming remunerations Treated like palmfuls of salt, Bitter souls laughed at, reduced to nothingness
The big foot kills the angry ant. They are afraid of a revolution, They have mansions to protect, They have wealth to save, They have beautiful women to kiss, They have sons to educate, We have nothing but them to fight Hungry, angry, the heart beats faster...
Beaton Galafa
55