Monthly Archives: September 2018

Another Tuesday

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for Pablo Neruda & Salvadore Allende & Victor Jara
(On Tuesday, September 11, 2012)

It was another Tuesday, like this
cloudless, bright Tuesday for planes
to fly out of over New York, over DC —
“Freedom is attacked” they said.

When freedom is attacked, poets die
hearts break, like laws, like constitutions
like the fingers of folk singers.

On another Tuesday, another September 11
1973, in Santiago, Chile, the Palace surrounded.
5000 workers herded into the Stadium.
President Allende, forced to put the rifle to his chin
Soldiers in the Stadium picking off heroes
the Stadium where they broke the fingers
of Victor Jara to silence his guitar, his voice.

When poets are attacked, freedom dies.

That Tuesday Pinochet was no turbaned
terrorist hiding in dusty hills. When you win
you reign in a Palace visited by men in suits
the guns at the door keep out
the workers, the peasants, the poets.

When freedom is attacked, poets die.

Pablo Neruda dying, sick with cancer —
When Allende died the Poet’s heart stopped
his words end, Death sliding through the walls —

“La muerte abriendo puertas y caminos,
La muerte deslizándose en los muros.”

When freedom is attacked, poets die
but are not silenced. The Army’s guns
could not stop the people’s funeral
for their Laureate, for Neruda.

Years of Tuesdays later no one recites
Pinochet the way lovers recite Neruda
the way peasants sing of Victor Jara.

When poets are attacked, freedom dies.

Tuesday September 11, 2001
was not a cry for war, but became one
by those who had made another
Tuesday, another September 11
1973 a cry of anguish.

But the people rise like smoke, workers
with wrenches & hammers, peasants
with machetes & tractors, EMTs
with blistered hands & stretchers
Neruda & Jara with their words.

When freedom is attacked, poets die.

People disappeared from the land they tilled
heroes crumpled against a wall, but the words
of the Poet became the air we breathe
like the smoke from the Towers
on still another Tuesday.

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