But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.
Amos 5:24

    I have been thinking about the difference one or two people can do for justice in this world.  The message that has been given by us over the years is, nothing.  We have been told the problems of this world are too large and complex for the average person to understand let alone do anything about it.  Yet at the same time, why is it, we can look at something and think there is a solution.  Now I'm not going to minimize all the problems and suggest that they can be solved in thirty minutes minus the commercial breaks.  Of course not, but what I am saying is we are living at a time when the average person has found their voice.  In the last century everything was based upon mass, we had mass wars, mass economies, mass media, mass culture, but with the Internet that has all changed, now one person can make a difference.  We consider that near the end of the century, one man, Nelson Mandela became the catalyst of change;  South Africa went from a constitutionally racist nation to a multi-cultural nation.  Sure it's not perfect but describe to me the perfect nation today.

    I return to my original question, what can one person do about all the problems of the world.  I am reminded of the line from the movie Casablanca, which Rick turns to Ilsa and says: the one thing I've learned is that the problem of two little people don't give a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world.  This is true, the world doesn't care about two people, but two people I truly believe can make a difference.  It has to be true, if it isn't then this world is in more desperate then even I think.  One person can start to make a difference and often it starts with one person telling another person and then those two tell two more and then, I think you have the picture.  When you think about it, great things have all started with one or two people.  Movement doesn't start as a huge mass but one or two then three or four,

    Can poetry make a difference, can the literary and cultural arts make a difference?  History demonstrates that it can, how many times hae a strong performance of music or other arts with a strong political base have moved people to riot and demand a change.  The message usually has not be blunt but rather oblique and yet those witnessing the performance understood the message.  Often the message is obscure to avoid the wrath of official censorship;  censors are rarely creative or filled with imagination.  Which is often a good thing since much can go under their understand and potential wrath. 

    What are some of the issues facing our world today?  How long do you want my introduction to be?  AIDS, hunger,  third world debt, exploitation of workers, women and children, drug abuse and drug trafficking;  it is extensive and growing.  So how do we deal with all these problems?  May I suggest a few, the first is saying these problem should not exist on the scale they do.  Secondly, we need come up with constructive ideas and solutions.   Through expression, answers can be found.  By the simple act of writing words down in a poem ideas can germinate.  The problem now becomes, will those who have the power listen?  I was going to conclude with we can only hope, no we can make them listen, we can make them change.  We exist in the presence of a hope that can't be neutralized.




Poetry

She Is Good At Praying

she is good at praying
she believes in praying
her prayer is always answered

she bought a lottery ticket
and she prayed
that someone else
someone else who needs money
more money than she needs
would win the prize

in a few days
her prayer was answered
someone else won
she did not

she is good at praying
she is blessed

Suchoon Mo

suchoon@aol.com

Washington DCeption

Never get in pissing contests
With die hard bullyrag malodorous skunks
Off-white housebroken spotty Dalmatian strays
In-denial nothings the gray matter

Ivory Castle fear-mongers manipulating pawns
Fatal isolated moves checkmate foreordained
King George’s bloodthirsty thorny crown
“In Gold Wet Rust” corrosion

Axes of we-evil edgy hatchet-men
Stud poker face-off masquerade bluff
Knavish scam gambling America’s future
One-eyed Jacks misguided missile Aces

Iraq and rollover twisted shouts
Jokers undermining imposed stacked deck
Unsafe roulette bet wheeler-dealer spin
Bushy tail skedaddle just comeuppance

Indian pachisi Persian backgammon offshoot
Iran You-ran bombastic nuclear reactions
Thimblerig cowry shell game swindle
Democrazy quilt fraying patchwork cover-up

Dr. Charles Frederickson

Voices

We don’t have a voice
Despite we groveled
for wealthy owners
Got bloody
in too many wars
Drove those mules
swabbed those children
washed those dishes
served those men
When it comes
to somebody listening
We don’t have a voice

Reluctant Remittance Man

 
You hung about street corners
freckle-faced and hungry,
little boy in need of
scrubbing and loving.

We took you home
into our hearts and cupboards
until, flinging curses, you left
with your young friends.

All these years later
you're still hanging about street corners,
dirty, ill and hungry, too old for scrubbing
and loving isn't enough.

San Francisco

There we were in the mid 60s,
me pooched out in front,
you snug inside, racing—
or, in this case, waddling—
to the demonstration
on Auto Row. I’d taken the bus
then had to cross Van Ness Avenue,
started just as the light turned yellow.
In a screech of brakes that swung
ten heads our way, a semi
ground to a stop. The driver
stuck his bearded head out the window
and snarled around his cigar,
You can be knocked down, too, lady.
I smiled in his glaring face
and went on my way,
your tiny hands bumping in rhythm
against my ribcage.

Patricia Wellingham-Jones
PWJ Publishing
PO Box 238
Tehama CA 96090
http://www.wellinghamjones.com

THE RIDDLE

What would be bequethed?
A grain of sand
to join
the many others
a pattern
to remain a puzzle
a little man
in a huge
universe.

 
BROKEN JOURNEY

The soul
is not
mine
to keep
as i look
where
to lay
my head
to sleep

 
COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Moon bases
and rocket ships
trips to mars
and saturn's rings
forever more
all those things
farewell to earth
my loved ones
left behind
live in the poetry
of my dreams.

vince gullaci
ving@optusnet.com.au

The Revolution

Will not be televised
         it won't make CNN or BBC
because we're not interested in being dissected by the talking heads
            of Fox News and declared to be losers
and needing a job for
       how else do you agitate for a better world
if your punching a clock or stuck inside
          the fabric line cubicle of a dead-end white collar job

it will be
          downloaded and played on
boom boxes and mp3 players
    it will be sampled and mashed
            with a heavy drum beat and
tranced so that we can dance

the revolution will be
             podcasted and available
through iTunes©
and listened to over white earphones and plugs

you have to have a good beat
          to win the street
and that's where it will take place
       far from the centre of the Universe
away from the remote controlled cable industry fed
monoculture

it will be raved and played
           by the players that are coming up
the groove will happen and the Man will fall
because at the end

the Revolution needs  rhythm it needs soul
           and if you got a good beat
 you will ultimately

win.


I am Not

an African
        nor from Asia
I don't live
        in the barrios
or in prison
        I don't know
what's it like
           to be hungry
           or thirsty
          to feel the fear of official oppression
          or wonder
if I will be alive in the morning

I have my health
       I have my home
           I have my clothes
               I have my food

then

why do I bother
         why do I care
          

I'm one of the lucky ones
         who made it into the top percentage
and if I do bother
        it's done so comfortably

then

why do I bother
         why do I care


because

I share the same blood as an African
        the same dreams as an Asian
            the same hopes of the First Nations
                the same sense of being a human
                    in the same sense we all share

I care
because

I better care

Paul Gilbert
paul@abovegroundtesting.com