Terrorism in Philadelphia #4

Terrorism in Philadelphia #4

 

The first thing I noticed

The first thing I noticed

was a lack of William Penn

Liberty Place not so much

Liberty Place not so much

After the explosions

one also noticed perspectives

that had been there all the time, but hidden

But hidden, suddenly exploding, sorry, arriving

inside a mind trying to link to

a new narrative, a new Philadelphia, a new now

which included being alive, of course

We are being reassured that bombs are being

dropped “on the other side” in the name of

Philadelphia, though there’s talk of renaming

ourselves New Philadelphia-

I am old enough to remember Horn and

Hardart windows on Broad Street, 8 floors of

Leary’s Book Store, Eugene Ormandy, I do not

remember hate like we have received-

 

I do remember US murders of Vietnamese

the wars we fought, the murders of many

speakers of Spanish, the wars we fought

the murders of Muslims, the wars we fight

 

I remember Philadelphia Poet Herschel Baron

reading Poems from his Spanish Civil War Cell

Why haven’t we yet learned to hate war,

to love peace,

to find a way not to constantly invent enemies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisement

About bobsmall1

Bob Small has read at Bacchanal, Barnes and Noble, Borders, The Booksource (Swarthmore), The Clark Park Festivals,Community College of Philadelphia Highwire Gallery, The Mad Poets Annual Food Fest Reading, The Middle East Restaurant, Nexus GalleryThe Painted Bride Arts Center, The Philadelphia Ethical Society, Robin's Bookstore The University of Pennsylvania and also in New York City, Trenton, NJ, Washington, DC, and in many Delaware Valley Venues. He is the author of numerous chapbooks, including El Otro Lado (with Maralyn Lois Polak), On watching America Die, Small Steps and Toes (with Lamont B. Steptoe), and The Unapoet. This is his first Reading in over a year. Bob Small was Founder and President of the two decades old Poets and Prophets, which presented Poetry Readings in both Delaware County and Philadelphia. Bob was the Chair of The Delaware County Green Party and was the First Green Party Candidate in Delaware County (2005). He was also a Green Party National Delegate, among other duties. He is the Founder and Facilitator of The Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition (PaBac), which is a Coalition of both Independents and Third Parties., seeking to legislatively improve Pennsylvania's Ballot Access Laws. (Facebook) Bob is also a founding member and Facilitator of Democracy Unplugged, and Delco Debates, which has presented Independent and Third Party Forums in Delaware County since 2004. Facebook) He was formerly involved with Cinema Resistance, and Delco Pledge of Resistance. Bob currently lives in Swarthmore with his wife and their menagerie of animals. He is currently focused on writing a Novel and organizing his Poetry, which he posts on his Blog (Bob Small1). He is retired from most of the above activities, except Delco Debates and Poets and Prophets, which he may return to.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s