Ol’ Red Jack Hirschman: He Weaponized Words
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” —Percy Bysshe Shelly
I.
Death comes in 3s they say. So maybe 6
months of San Francisco Poet Laureates
Ferlinghetti,
Mirikitani,
Hirschman
checking out counts as three???
I can’t quote Jack—except for, “Can’t speak
for all, that’s the whole first point—” Yet, I
can wax into the wee hours on his arms
Embracing me as enemy combatant vs capital
II.
The rat-ta-tat-tat-tat of his typewriter weaponized
words enforcing dialectical laws… "Any means necessary:”
paintings, poems, collages, translations in Haitian Creole,
Russian, Spanish, German, Hebrew, French, Greek, Italian,
Albanian for foreign fighters daring to don red badges of
Resistance…
The rat-ta-tat-tat-tat of his typewriter weaponized
words ricocheting off Wall Street and Washington
warlords. Words echoing in hearts and minds of
of auto and postal worker children—paychecks
away from zoo bellies, no soap-waterless weeks
accompanying cardboard mattresses and tents
Revolutionary Poets Brigade internationalist
commandant, North Beach head dug in at Café
Trieste, his guided missiles questioned lunacy.
Some even struck where little cable cars climb half
way to the stars, carrying confederate sympathizers
belching benzene, coughing COVID droplets on operators
Revolutionary Poets Brigade internationalist
commandant, North Beach head dug in at Café
Trieste; Fishbowl escapee drinking cigarettes/smoking
Jack Daniels, living hand-to-mouth on poet’s minus six
figure salary
No mas… Red Jack Hirschman—Presente!!
© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at:
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund
PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT
The Canadian government has embarked on a project to disappear any anti-Zionist narratives and to discredit anyone who expresses them. The Zionist project is now treated as if it were a "protected…
The quadrennial football World Cup is the focus of worldwide attention. But African nations have fewer opportunities to participate, and Morocco's success has made it favorite of the African diaspora…
The African diaspora gathered for events in Washington DC to counter the claims of U.S. concern for African nations before the U.S. African Leaders Summit.
Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab was kidnapped by the U.S. in 2020 and is still in custody. An evidentiary hearing is taking place to determine if the country that constantly speaks of a "rules based…
The 2022 U.S. African Leaders Summit is the latest effort by Washington to exert influence on a continent where it habitually thwarts democracy, sovereignty and independence for 54 nations.
