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Lew Rosenbaum reading at a recent Chicago event.
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Note--My original version of this post included the poem Dead Letter Office which I mistakenly attributed to Lew Rosenbaum. I deeply apologize for the mistake. I have substituted his powerful poem about police executions Don't Shoot.
I
sort of stumbled on Lew Rosenbaum on
the Facebook group Chicago
Revolutionary Poets Brigade. I
knew nothing about him, but we have better than a dozen mutual FB friends, mostly radicals and activists I have known and
some poets. Judging from his picture, we
are about the same age and have similar preference for goatees. It seems likely
that one way or another our paths probably crossed some decades ago however
fleetingly.
I
could not sniff out a lot of biographical
detail in my usual Google
search. He has apparently been an
activist for most of his adult life and been a radical bookseller including
time at Chicago’s Guild Bookstore—an
old haunt—as well as a poet. It turns
out he is the administrator Revolutionary
Poets Brigade page and is the manager of People’s Tribune Chicago community which
is associated with Peoples Tribune, newspaper and now website which was formerly published by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America,
is now independent with an editorial board based in Chicago.
Don’t Shoot
1999
Amadou Diallo
23 years old
Guinean
immigrant in the Bronx,
New York.
His name rolls
off the tongue
Like waves
rising from the port of Conakry
To crash at the
foot of the Statue of Liberty.
Shot 41 times
By four white
police officers.
2011
Kelly Thomas
Thirty-seven
years old
Homeless, Anglo,
schizophrenic man.
Citrus-scented
hallucinations
Taunt his
fevered
Fullerton,
California, street dreams.
Beaten to death
by the police.
2014
Michael Brown
19 years old
African American
bound for college,
Hope gripped
tight,
A future denied.
Shot 6 times
In Ferguson, Missouri.
Come: See the
blood
Running in the
streets of my country.
Does it matter
If it’s 41 shots
Or only 6 –
Or (merely)
beaten to death?
Amadou Diallo’s
killers
Were judged not
guilty.
Kelly Thomas:
verdict not guilty.
How will Michael
Brown’s killers be judged?
Come see the
blood,
Blood that
torrents down the streets
Of my poor
country.
Michael Brown,
his student life opening before him;
Kelly Thomas,
living in the trap of his delusions;
They achieved
the equality of the bullet and night-stick,
Both shed blood
to wash the streets of their cities.
Amadou’s mother
cried out, sobbing:
She had “the
talk” with her son.
Surely Michael’s
mother had
“the talk.”
Even before
Trayvon Martin
I had “the talk”
with my grandson.
Today I shiver
as his
Brown-skinned
hands brandish his toy rifle.
Come see, how
the blood
Floods the
streets of my rich country.
These, our
words, are
Our weapons.
Our weapons draw
all the poor together
In what is a
tapestry of common purpose,
That join us in
a vision of a country
Where no one
wants for a place to stay
For food to eat
For songs to
sing
Where the
conjoined blood
That today
separately runs rivulets in the streets
Will bind us
together
To return
laughter to our throats
Peace to our
hearts
Justice to our
hands.
—Lew Rosenbaum
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Rosenbaum's chap book.
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The
second poem I found on the Chicago Labor and Arts Blog where
it was posted last April. I’ll let
Rosenbaum describe it in his own words:
My mother, Anna,
died at 87 in 1983. She spent the last
few years declining in a nursing home; the last weeks hardly cognizant of her
surroundings. That image haunted me,
still haunts me, trying to imagine what was in her mind when we thought she was
not comprehending. This poem took a couple of decades to write, reaching this
version in my chapbook To Pay The Piper. She loved to tell
young people about the time the soldiers came, like cossacks; it was so central
to her growing up, to her fear of the Russian oligarchy and her willingness to
embrace the radical. Of course one of
the things that I think about now at this time of my own life is that others
will have to fight and to remember; and in remembering and fighting, do
something the world of her comrades was unable to do. They will build a whole
new world which will not know cossacks of any kind and which will treat the
elders with compassion.
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Rosenbaum's mother Anna circa 1920.
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This is My Last Shuttered House
Grandma shuttered all the windows
Anna Rosenbaum
in about 1920
She took us up
the stairs
She hid us under
beds
While the
soldiers thundered by.
But this is my
last shuttered house.
This withered
body contains the last of my suffering.
What hurts me
most?
I would tell
you,
The look you
give me
When you can’t
see within.
Oh yes, you see
a crazy woman.
Flailing about,
her tongue.
Wraps itself
around each gurgling
Sound I cannot
make you understand.
You sit here now
Son and
daughter; you
Have each other
to talk to
And, thinking
you know how
Senseless I am,
Exchange glances
Sharing your
distress and pity.
Now I can lie
here
Pretend to
sleep.
Although your
pity repulses me;
Still, glad you
are here.
I know you are
upset.
I’ll give you
less grief
If I lie here
In my last
shuttered house.
Peering from the
outside
You can’t see
Ghost or web or
Whatever is
alive within.
I remember the
first time.
I’ve told you
many times.
I was only seven
Oshmyany was our
town
And the soldiers
came like cossacks
They rode horses
with clattering hooves
Down the narrow
cobbled streets
And they banged
on all the doors
They demanded
young men for the army
They demanded
young women to serve them.
And we shuttered
all the windows
Grandmother
shuttered all the windows
She took us up
the stairs
We hid under the
beds
We hid in the
closets
Grandmother
pulled the shutters
And the house
was dark for days.
*
* * * *
Now I hurt most
from those
Your
uncomprehending stares
Even more than
sores that eat through to the bone
Even more than
feeding tubes they thrust down my nose
And more:
Because my stare
cannot always comprehend you.
(Moments clear
like this one
May never come
again).
One July evening
you laid your hands on my
Sweat-drenched
brow and murmured permission.
“Don’t stay in
this pain for me” you said.
“Not on my
behalf. The toll’s too great.”
I grip this too
fragile thread
Only to
recognize your faces
When I can . . .
I will let go
when meaning
Slips away
completely.
There is nothing
after this.
When this house,
my last house,
Is shuttered
tight
Others will have
to fight
Others will have
to remember
Even about that
first time
When I was only
seven
And the soldiers
came like cossacks
Riding horses
with clattering hooves.
Now I hurt most
from those
Your
uncomprehending stares
Even more than
sores that eat through to the bone
Even more than
feeding tubes they thrust down my nose
And more:
Because my stare
cannot always comprehend you.
(Moments clear
like this one
May never come
again).
One July evening
you laid your hands on my
Sweat-drenched
brow and murmured permission.
“Don’t stay in
this pain for me” you said.
“Not on my
behalf. The toll’s too great.”
I grip this too
fragile thread
Only to
recognize your faces
When I can . . .
I will let go
when meaning
Slips away
completely.
There is nothing
after this.
When this house,
my last house,
Is shuttered
tight
Others will have
to fight
Others will have
to remember
Even about that
first time
When I was only
seven
And the soldiers
came like cossacks
Riding horses
with clattering hooves.
—Lew Rosenbaum
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