2020 In Ryhme

My winning poem from “Activists Got Talent 2021” a fundraiser for VOCAL-New York in May 2020.

Tonight I speak in rhyme

About this strange surreal time

The 365 days past

Since spring last

I wouldn’t say it’s been a blast

Gloom

Doom

Too much zoom

No way to groom

Stuck in a few small rooms

As an election loomed

I live in the borough of Queens

Where everyone dreams

But last year we tore at the seams

As the ambulance sirens screamed

We were not the ones from the city who fled

We woke up every day filled with dread

Of our neighbors not being fed

Nowhere near enough hospital beds

And so many dead

People not getting paid

Rent not being made

We we were afraid

Not enough help even with mutual aid

The virus was a blight

And It’s not right

That it was a fight

For a response with might

that provided light

We had a President who didn’t care.

A Governor who doesn’t play fair.

Billionaires not paying their share.

It’s almost too much to bear.

As the weather turned warm

There was more to mourn

George Floyd, a Black son to a mother born

By the police, his murder.

Not law and order.

Even with the virus not complete

We were in the streets

No justice no peace.

No justice no peace.

It seemed that change

Was within range

But I don’t know

We just go

Way too slow

The right verdict a few weeks back

Maybe put us on the right track

But injustice, violence and killings — still do not lack

It’s happened before and before and before and again and again and again.

I cannot comprehend

Why is there no end?

Centuries of white supremacy — how do we upend?

How do we mend?

Make our country, city, state

A fairer, more just place

To stop the hate

To stop death by gender, immigration, religion, and race

Is violence and death our only fate

Last year as we marched in our tribute collars lace

Were we too late

To honor John Lewis’ grace

Is our promise blown

Do we reap what we sow

NO NO NO

It will not be so

Because for sure the only thing I know

Is that by vote change will grow

Now my poem shifts direction.

Earlier I mentioned last year’s looming election

Because no one wanted the Coronavirus infection

From door knocking there was a mandatory defection

So for months we made calls everyday

For candidates in states far far away

To upstate voters for Samra Brouk and Rachel May

For Joe Biden to my birth state of PA

Talking on the phone, I detest

But we could not rest

This was a democracy test

And we did our very best

In October, I early voted on day one

Stood in a line ten blocks long in the sun

FOUR hours later I was done

The wait, with my neighbors I shared this

To cast my vote for Biden Harris

And my state Senator Gianaris

On the Working Families Party line — bc they’re the fairest

I filled in the little holes — I wasn’t careless

Wore my sticker for weeks unembarrassed

Then like for Godot we waited

Listening to absurdist fraud claims some created

Did we do enough, we debated

Four more years, were we fated?

The results came belated

We were elated

The seventh of November

A day I will always remember

From outside my door

a victory roar

Impossible to ignore

Pennsylvania called

Trump falled

By we the people all

We cried

Celebrated far and wide

Marched in the streets from the Upper West Side

Danced under the 7 train in Sunnyside

Here, I could end gladly

But I cannot sadly

Because still this could have ended badly

Just as we had senators two

from Georgia new

A U.S. Senate with Dems NOT too few

We had no time to mew

Because there was a fucking coup

I take another change in direction

Because of this treasonous insurrection

We watched on tv

It was hard to conceive

Still hard to believe

A sitting President peeved

Because he didn’t want to leave

As the election confirmed

Our capital stormed

Traitors didn’t want the new president sworn

Few republicans called out their bad form

This is not a democracy norm

But they would see

The new President would be

With a Vice President for the first time a she

An inauguration with a poet much better than me

And In Albany

two supermajorities

So we can give bad laws the ax

Take progressive values to the max

On polluters not be lax

The rich, make sure we tax

And finally get our vax

You can bet

We are not done yet

City candidates to vet

Much more policy to get

A state executive to right set

Coming to end my soliloquy

It is not lost on me

That without the 2018 IDC

defeat

and the resulting New York Senate majority

that would be

voting reforms we would not see

No debate

We made New York State

great

First rate

But in other states

a different fate

awaits

Voting reforms, not on the their plate

Let’s get this straight

Republicans cannot impress

So anti-democracy laws is their address

VOTING, laws to suppress

PEOPLE’S VOICES, laws to oppress

OUR DEMOCRACY, laws to undress

THE FUTURE, laws to make a mess

IF the US senate doesn’t pass 1 S

But have no doubt

Shouldn’t be hard to figure out

We the people have the clout

On our power you can always count

We survived four years of Trump’s crazy cast

NY state’s shady ass past

An excluded workers fund fast

Loss suffering and grief that is vast

But we did not crack

Down we did not back

A fighting spirit we do not lack

We went on stack

Put on our masks

Stood up to the task

I say with all due tact

2020 was not our final act

We fight on and that is a fact