78 Whistles

There are downtimes in the resistance, at least for retired amateurs like myself. One can tolerate only so much virtue in a day, even virtue in defiance of the non-stop malevolence effluent out of Washington, D.C. these months now. As if the virtue itself were tainted, ever so slightly, by the malignancy that spawned it. Non-violence provoked by violence, alas, seems to carry a seed of violence within it, which can be checked behaviorally, but not imaginatively. (How many government officials have I terminated in my daydreams? With extreme prejudice.)

Last week’s downtime, though, produced this poem, in praise of de-escalation. Violence free. 

78 Whistles

A Gordian knot of whistle cords lies

on the table before the old man, the

nickel-plated whistles nesting therein.

He pulls on one whistle, the knot tightens.

He pulls on a cord end, the knot tightens.

“What the . . . How the fuck? . . Who the fuck?” he thinks.

It is what cord does if left to itself.

A retired Ph.D., he’ll figure it out.

It just takes time. Patience. To untangle.

In time, seventy-eight whistles are free.

 

Winter is here. The ICEmen cometh

in brown shirts—faceless, bulky, and armed.

They prowl the streets for our brown neighbors

in SUVs with out-of-state plates.

Pepper-spray ever at the ready.

Tear-gas, side-arms, and assault-rifles

                              vs.

 Whistles, cell-phones, yellow vests—us.

 With losses, yes, yet we hold our own.