Whole world is wilting
under terrorist temperature
of Death Valley days.
All and everywhere
becoming Israel and their Palestinians.
Methods of crowd control
no longer based on Disneyland,
now inspired
by Jerusalem check points
and torture chambers.
To avoid suspicion
people of color
advised
to go naked on subways and busses.
 Stew Albert Photo by Robert Altman © 2006 |
Stew Albert, a co-founder of Yippies who died on 30 January 2006, published this poem on 24 July 2005 on his blog, shortly after the London police killing on 22 July 2005 of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian man, in the aftermath of the London subway bombings. Albert’s poem is reproduced here with kind permission of Judy Gumbo Albert. © Judy Gumbo Albert. See, also, two eulogies for Albert in MRZine: Bernardine Dohrn, “Eulogy for Stew Albert” (6 June 2006); and Jeff Jones, “Stirring the Pot: Remembering Stew Albert — 1939-2006” (6 June 2006).