Poetry

On June Teenth, roses are left on fence surrounding burial ground for enslaved people in St. James, Louisiana on land where a petrochemical complex is being built. Communities in the area, “Cancer Alley,” have a high rate of cancer and continue to fight these companies.
Photo / Follow juliedermansky.com

Dear Friends,

On these pages are poems the People’s Tribune has published over the years. Enjoy! To submit a poem for consideration, please contact us at peoplestribune@gmail.com

— The Editors

Poems

NO SERVICE HERE

by Kathy Powers April 30, 2018 NO SERVICE HERE Where will we go To get our food stamps?Where will we go?Follow the rules. Where can we go to?Where is...

We Must Pick Up the Pieces

We must pick up the piecesof the dreams our ancestors left behindwhen they fought to change the world. We must pick up the piecesof love...

Heat Wave

driving to workwith the window downhot breath of an angry Godspewing in my face, I feel condemned without evenbeing judged,the heat is a ubiquitous, tangible...

The Burn

Ninety degreesNo cooling centersWhat shall we do with?No cooling centers?Sunscreen cladWe flock to the beachesScorching bleached sandWe flock to the beaches.Deadly yet welcomeThe snow...

I’m Tryna Get A Hot Dog

I'm Tryna Get A Hot Dog He sat on the low curbAcross from the entrance of the supermarketWhere boxes and cans of food crammed the...

Being a Wow

Being a Wow Oh yes we are!We run the world.Men’s good ideasCame from us.We own it!Men hate it.They keep us down,Well, they try.We birth the...

poor Jesus

poor JesusGregory Pond at midnight mass, the pope proclaimed“God is poor, let charity be reborn”but doesn’t he already knowthe savior of which he speaksalready sleeps...

Dissent: an anthology to end war and capitalism

Civil Disobedience as Literature- a Review of Dissent: an anthology to end war and capitalism, edited by Mark Lipman, Vagabond, 2023 That we exist in...

Pray for

I pray for peacefor war to ceasefor kids to breathefor love’s increase I pray for youthfor guns to trucefor hate to losefor freedom, too I pray...

Who?

Who?D.L. Lang Who will be leftto care for the elderlyafter all the doctorshave donned uniforms? Who be left in your congregationafter you have deceivedyour faithful adherentsinto...

Don’t Cop Out

Don't Cop OutBy James Norman I don't use the word unhoused,which pretends it's something weare sorting out. maybe this linguistic choice has todo with the lack...

If I Could Rule the World

If I could rule the world for only a daychange the course of human events to go the other way.A life of love, what...

Razor Wire – Pogrom Ready

Razor wire like “freedom”Was designed to rip the assesOf the poor and underclasses. Razor wire outshines napalmAllays all anxiety and doubtThe affluent kept safe the...

The Chicago Garden

The Chicago GardenBy Kathy Powers On April FourthThe poll gates openedOnto fragrant landscapesOf life-giving blooms. Hopes for the houselessStuck up some shoots;Reasons for livingSmiled over...

Holy Week 2023

Holy Week 2023 By Adam Gottlieb On the full moon in April80 years since Warsaw40 since Harold WashingtonIn the middle of Ramadan On the night before PassoverWe...

Chance Meeting

I heard my name called on noisy Market Stit was a woman I know from Occupy dayswho used to play drumsin a lot of...

poor Jesus

Poor Jesusat midnight mass, the pope proclaimed“God is poor, let charity be reborn”but doesn’t he already knowthe savior of which he speaksalready sleeps on...

It Could Be Anything

It Could Be Anything

Enough

PreambleNo one should go unhomed.There is plenty.If we work toward balance,There is enough.Balance does not occur without struggle.If you were ever a child who...

Poem for peace

Poem for peace Is there any poetry to be found in the war in Ukraine?Will poets write poems about the Ukrainian War spreading to Europe,Asia,...

Note To Editor

Dear Editor,  I have one request to you and all the legislative leaders.  Stop opining and pontificating about gun violence.  Just play a repeated loop of the...

You want to talk to me about heartbreak?heartbreak well it's heartbreaking what happenedand keeps happening what happened in Texaswhat happened in Buffalo it's heartbreaking...

My Body Bag

Woman describes her 40 years with severe bipolar symptoms, years in psychiatric hospitals, later adopting advocacy as her therapy.

‘The Walking Man:’ Beloved Homeless Man Set on Fire

Beloved homeless man in Chicago was doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire while sleeping.

Be

For the people of Ukraine and Russia who don’t stand
to profit from this war.
Heroes are born from dirt and struggle
They bleed red through interconnected veins

The Deal

Life is a card game With a marked deck: They look all the same To make one a wreck.

THE NAKBA ARCANE

The inmates have responded.
The holocaustic concentration
camp victims in Gaza refused
to accept the six evictions from

Vote as Oath

Every opening to every door, 
every dissent to every decision,
every fight you didn’t flinch on, 
and showdown you showed up to,

Matamoros Mexico

Matamoros Mexico
Tent city on the border
Synonymous with waiting
Synonymous with suffering
Synonymous with hopelessness

certain hungry ones

certain hungry ones
have the gift of
turning crumbs
into meals
and sharing them

certain hungry ones

certain hungry ones
have the gift of
turning crumbs
into meals
and sharing them

THE YOUNG ARCANE

First it was, like a bat
out of hell, “I can’t breathe!”
and tens, then hundreds
then hundreds of thousands
died because they couldn’t.

A WOMAN

About 50
with a kerchief
and her left-fist full
of handkerchief she’s pushing

Calling for Transformation

Stay at home
cover your mouth
don’t shake hands
don’t see your grandkids

So Many Words

They come to most forums Say many words Coiffed with intimations of home Empty, ruling class promises.

A regular fixture

A regular fixture:
A hefty bag
Of her belongings
And a cushion to sit on
Around the corner

A regular fixture

A regular fixture:
A hefty bag
Of her belongings
And a cushion to sit on
Around the corner

Sweep Up

sweep up
from
.
the southern
latitudes
.
tides of
the human

I Know Her from the Neighborhood

She is your mother and my mother too
I know her from the neighborhood
She phones her son through the jailhouse glass
I know her from the neighborhood
She lies awake til her daughters come home
I know her from the neighborhood

“I am and will be Other”

“I am and will be Other, until I write you into my heart and make you see my home as what it is. Just another extension of your own home. For there is no them; there is only us.”

The ‘Tears of Hate’ Arcane

My tears last night
seeing my brothers
and sisters in GI Jews
were not only theirs
shed 73 years ago
outside liberated nazi
concentration camps,

Poem from “Streetscene”

I’d like to see capital
with lacerated knees crawling
from one reality to another
for a change.

Untitled

hungry
homeless
need you
on a sign

NOW, THE RESISTANCE

In the most powerful nation
on earth, a flame
of fascistic fervor is taking hold,
fueled by privileges, corruption
and greed.

visionary

he has his precious
stash of books
out on the pavement
in the cold night

The Kids Heard the Sound

The kids heard the sound
Looking all around
Suddenly blood on the ground
Time to make a change

Now let’s go

Now let's go
But we can't go
Backwards

New Year Supermoon

So full
so close
to the Earth
Bigger brighter
lightening the darkness
now slowly waning

Let There Be Respite

Comes November rain.
HERE/THERE WITHER/WHERE? IN/OUT?
Streets. Doorways. Sidewalks.

psalm 137

under the viaducts
by the waters of Uptown
that’s where we sat down
and we remembered Zion

the cart he pushes

the cart he pushes
has a full load
.
but his sad eyes
are as blue as the light
on a silvery sea

Cooperation

Rise above the beastly nature
Be the human that you are
The struggle of endless competition
Ends in ultimate ruin
Resources depleted
Fertile ground left sterile

Peace over piece

The tension is depressin
Others hold the same aggression
Ain’t no telling but accepted as a life lesson
They say the root of all evil is dinero
Poverty terror

Too Old Young Men

We’re a couple of too old young men
Who keep going back, again and again
Calling each other on the phone
Time’s passed, neither leave it alone

THE WAY IT IS

J.W. told me tonight
that Mitch the Chipewa
died two nights ago.
“Over-exposure and drink.
39 years old.” “And he had
a bad ticker,” said Gyzmo’s

The Night

The night had no effect
passing into dusk,
sleep comes abrupt,
detachment
kept from the dreamer.
Weaving without strings

Ghosts

You keep burying it
Deeper
Encased in flimsy
Coffins
Away from the people
That you love

a nest

a nest
of newspapers
in a niche
*
to lay
the head

why?

why can't he sit inside
who found a cup with
a little coffee in it
and settled into
the cafe armchair?

Homeless, Not Hopeless

Sitting in my tent
More time spent
Defending
Pretending
Everything's just okay

i do not know “what i am,”

i do not know “what i am,”
except a worker
trying
to pay for groceries
like you

Bees

Lead in Flint water
Poison in Syrian air
Cancer in the dirt,
Cancer on the airwaves,
Tumors in the White House.

women all

women all
along Drumm St
now young and old
girls with their
sleeping dogs

Santa Ana Riverbed

Take a walk along the river's trail, move the tents to no avail
Little do they realize, each is a house for a pair of eyes
Will they ever realize?
Or continue spreading more lies

A whole lot of wildness

Of living
It’s best to stay expressive than to hold in
We know the path our roots the inconvenient
So why trash the gift given
From Ancestors to give

REFUGEES

Amici, friends, immigrants,
welcome to the land of broken hearts.
Your heart is – for different reasons,
or the same as mine – broken.

We all know

We all know it takes a whole lot of wildness
For pain to gain and conquer the mind
To keep it thoughtless
Throughout its time
Of living

gypsy woman

gypsy woman
went downstairs
into the station with
her cardboard sign

The American Nightmare

Welcome to the
"America dream", where
the President uses drones
to kill people,

Student poem

They try to fit us into the mold of the perfect student.
They try to create the leaders we already have in the new
generation. But don’t they see they aren’t working with the
generations now? We’re not the same.

A Student Deferred

What happens to a student deferred?
does she give up
like there’s nothing left?
or does she keep going –
cuz its fun?
does she try her hardest to pass?

“Let it bleed”

I'm from the boondocks
An iron city full of rum and drugs
South Central slums no fun is where I'm spawning from
The 90's unwind me to the time these Devils tried to blind me
my opponent is myself and only i can define me
I experienced the streets

What Happened?

I remember when teachers and students looked forward to school,
We thought it was cool.
What happened?
The government corrupted;
Budget cutting.

” Infected Souls”

For plenty of years we've been oppressed, with drugs and violence
Day and night, all i seem to hear is sirens
Knocking on my drums as i walk and stomp the slums
Breathing the rhythm as i kick and rock the funk

Mni Wiconi: Water Is Life

On cold flat North Dakota land
They rise in protest
The Standing Rock Sioux Nation
Burn sage and sing out
Will a pipeline steal
Across Standing Rock?

AS REV. PINKNEY DREAMS

Sleep falls hard under woolen blankets.
The day not cradled by a temporary small steel cot.
So much to set down, people to write.

We have budget cuts

We have budget cuts
Schools getting shut down
teachers getting cut
Not enough books go
Home

very poor

very poor
written small
on a scrap
of poor cardboard

Water is a human right: Poetry in Defense of Flint, Michigan

This special feature section, "In Defense of Flint," is a partnership between The People’s Tribune of Chicago and Caravel in response to the contamination of the city of Flint's water supply. Many of the poems here were published in April 2016 as a special insert to The People's Tribune for National Poetry Month.

The Magnificent Mile

Sign says:
Homeless. Need haircut.
Job. Train pass.
Sign says:
Homeless. Need food.
Medicine. Lost everything.

The Contradiction

They have endless money for war
And military expedition,
But no clean water for the poor
Poisoned people of Flint Michigan?

Live Community Culture

CHICAGO, IL — A spectre haunts the Americas, a spectre composed of millions of artivists who have united to rescue communities from the attacks of the corporative dictatorship that destroys us with its death doctrine.

Flowers in Hell

Of course
there are flowers in hell.
Some people smell them every day.
The blossoms of bigotry

i call god people

i call god people,
nature, earth,
justice, peace,
revolution,

cold rain

cold rain
here you come again
and my friends' shoes not dry
from the last one

revolt and Gargoyles weep

revolt
as necessary as food
it is the riffraff
the slaves the freed
into poverty

do you remember when

do you remember when
they called a blanket
and a piece of cardboard
a structure?

I slept three hours

I slept three hours
on the BART train
last night he said
to keep warm ...

Moral Mondays

The church folk are gathering on Mondays now.
Have you seen them?
Marching through downtown,
Linking arms outside the Board of Trade to block the entrances,
Shutting down business as usual,

Poet to the Poor

Who will be the poet to the poor
For the abused, used, confused
Who aren't even aware
They have a hope and a prayer
Who will be the poet to the poor

Don’t Shoot

1999
Amadou Diallo
Twenty-three years old
Guinean immigrant in the Bronx,
New York.
His name rolls off the tongue
Like waves rising from the port of Conakry

Everything

I am reminded again
as though I didn't know
down in the broken
homeless camps
down at the curb

The Bricklayer: In Memory of Nelson Peery

In Memory of Nelson Peery
At 92 years young,
He had to know
He would not see
The future he envisioned

Upon Reading “Man With the Hoe”

Strangling in the muck of history.
He leans against the tavern wall.
And silently gazes across the Avenue.
Where watchdogs of property.
With vulture eyes and shotguns

Portrait of Nelson Peery

With a small stick he worked the grains of wheat
out of the cracks between the rotten boards
of the boxcar floor flying through the Depression
and built a little mountain of them in his palm,

The Coat

I paw through the table of give away
coats. One cloth number tempts me
to smile. insisting as it does on polished
pews and woolen pedigrees. I’m trying

The Truth

Let's consider the truth:
The biggest gang in the world
is the police.
Our tax dollars pay for
no justice and no peace.

The Margins of Society

“I can’t help but notice all of those people
sitting over there for a very long time.
Doesn’t it bother you?”
I glance at all of the people sitting

Tea with Joe Hill

Joe Hill and I had tea
He let his biscuits soak
They say America is free
Man how they love to joke
Ask Sacco and Vanzetti

Working class poem

I was born
Free and penniless
And just like you
They have been robbing me

“Service Please”

Don’t ask me why I took it there
Because I didn’t
This capitalist system put me
In this predicament
At the bottom of the pyramid
A second to last class citizen

Peace Poem

Face your pale peace
And you'll wish
That Your blood
Had been alive
In your silent
Rattlesnake throat...

Waiting: (Jan. 3, 2015)

On a cold, puddle-filled night
some folks wait for a bus
under the shelter of a train station.

flame

last year this time
sleeping out there
he was so cold he dreamed
he'd spontaneously combusted

The Gleam

“There’s a gleam comin’ through,”
you said that day
with your arm held up
and your eyes fixed straight

DIEGO DELEO

An 80 year-old
compagno poet,
same age as me
but victimof that
horrific Ellis Act
is Diego Deleo. ...

dream

I dreamed my young homeless friends
were squatting a FEMA camp
making it no longer a prison
but a decent place to live
sharing their food and dreams

Prayer for Passover (April 14, 2014)

I passed over twelve destitute today:
homeless on the street,
some with signs, some with cups,
some shaking, some sleeping,
some black, some white,
some men, some women,
all hungry.

No Sleep for the Poor

No sleep for the poor.
Only sleep for the rich.
*
As people walk,
as people ignore,

American Slaves

Welcome to America
where corporations are people,
money talks, the government poisons

In crying out

I have learned not to scream
but chant, in vibration
with my heart
the earth

I asked him if he’d eaten

I asked him if he’d eaten
he said he’d had
a bunch of apples
all day

Poetry of Poverty in San Francisco

Poverty lives abundantly in San Francisco
10,000 homeless call its streets home
1 in 4 children and 1 in 5 adults

“Could We Eat Our Way to World Peace?”

We are all hungry for peace
Hungry for the sword
Not to cut us apart
Not to cut into our feast

The New Klan

discarding the sheets
they wore at night
opting in stead for the clean shaven head

Hire Scabs to Replace Congress!

During the government shutdown this October, the American public made the radical decision to hire scabs to replace the US Congress.

Oscar

How do I explain to my three year old why im marching in these streets
How do I explain to my three year old why she aint seen me all week ...

BINGO

N-53 … G-60
B-37: Not Guilty.
His heart was in the right place,
beating in his chest,
right where it should be,

Untitled ….GP

I think ya betta sit back and pleeeeeeeaaaaaaseee watch.
Like a burned movie
Theeeeeeeeese cops.
Before you find yourself
encaotured in chains

Trayvon

do we let them
murder our future?
do we let them
arm us with fear

A Fallen Leaf

Like a fallen leaf o a Fall day
Trayvon Martin lies on the ground
Dead of a bullet
Fired by a man who chased him for being young, black and in the wrong

art

I have to break a coin and a tattered bill
to squeeze some cheese from it and some bread
that is my art form now: there's no fooling it

Mama, I Can’t Sleep

In my dark and lonely fight, when all I have is just my right.
Who knows the truth, and if they care, to take my burden or just share

Hard Lessons

In reality
It feels like school’s against me
Cus no matter what I know,
If I don't pass that test
Then they won't let me go.
And if I'm not on time
No matter what's going on in my life

Sing A Song

early morning
sun in the sky
big yellow bird
pulls up to the front walk
and the doors open
and a song
falls down the stairs

flame

last year this time
sleeping out there
he was so cold he dreamed

Obituary: $7.25 A Week For Food

Embarrassed to plead
For his weekly grocery dough
George stayed home. . . and starved.

100 thousand Poets: Poetry demonstrates its power

SANTA ROSA, CA—The global movement of cultural activists calling themselves 100 Thousand Poets for Change is not waiting for its annual weekend of events in September. Instead, it is vibrantly alive from California to India.
Does poetry have power? Can it be a voice for justice? A threat to the powers that be?

Life suicided, Life sentenced

I expect you recently read
that more American soldiers
—men and women both—
killed themselves
in Afghanistan last year
than were killed in physical
combat in the war there.

Poetry: Free / Angry Eyes / Students Test Us

Free
Mental health clinics
closed. Forced to fight our demons
in the streets. Again.
Angry Eyes
My angry eyes brim
With women searching dumpsters
For capital’s crumbs.

Once More, Ayibobo!

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — On the eve of the 3rd anniversary of one of the most horrific earthquakes in modern times, in which more that 220,000 Haitians lost their lives, the Revolutionary Poets Brigade of San Francisco held a fundraising event of poetry and music and featuring the Haitian speaker Max Blanchet, at the Art Internationale, the Brigade’s center, on January 11.

Obama’s Inaugural II

There were politicians, poets, puffery, promises, the public,
The holy, rich and powerful were there. School kids, scarred
Veterans of last week’s, current and far away years’
Social, political and martial wars. Choirs, cheers, bands,
The press, ruffles and flourishes of rhetoric.

Early Saturday morning – Tenderloin

stretched
across the sidewalk
against a fence
not, in the coolness of October,
yet awake
dark, their clothes,
their coats

Vision of Technology

If technology could
If it were in the people's control
It could provide the means
For industry to work
Without the stress
So many laborers endure
On the assembly line

When society, as a whole, is oppressed:

* The act of rebellion is the only true sign of intelligence.
* The course of love is driven to resonate from its core, humans being humane to each other.

Synchronicity

(Progressive Collective Unconscious)
Carl Jung
Robert Bly
Perfect Strength
Meeting of the minds