Invocation

Note: This is the first Occupy poem I felt good enough to share. More are coming. Enjoy!

This marginalized American body
is a descendent of multiple rebellions.

I invoke
colonists throwing chests
of tea overboard on a cold Boston
night in November.

I invoke
women who realized that the baring
the next generation of Americans
should give them double say
in the country’s future, not none,
and went to jail for the basic right
to cast a ballot.

I invoke
the year long bus boycott in Montgomery
after they arrested Rosa Parks
for deciding she simply wasn’t
going to surrender
her seat another time
to another white man.

I invoke
the spirit of NYC drag queens and queers
who saw cops once more
invading the only safe space they had,
a little bar on Christopher Street
on the last Saturday in June
in the summer of ‘69
as the final straw
and opted to rebel rather than surrender.

I invoke
a too little known occupation
in San Francisco in 1977
in which people with disabilities,
some of whom risked their very lives by participating,
occupied an Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare’s
in San Francisco for 26 days, the longest siege of a federal office
in the nation’s history, which resulted in the signing of Section 504,
a law I still depend on daily.

I am occupying
so when future generations
need someone to invoke
they will have Occupy Wall Street,
Occupy Springfield, and Occupy Together
to remember.

NJ Pride Parade Poem

An acrostic poem in honor of
the first NJ Disability Pride Parade
and Celebration


Newly blooming offshoot of
Efforts first planted in Chicago then on the
West coast.

Joyous proclaiming that we demand right to
Embrace our bodies. However they’re designed.
Regardless of
Someone
Else’s opinion as to our being’s correctness. We
Yearn to turn this

Deepest wish
Into
Something we experience
As daily reality,
But we know there
Is much to accomplish before
Living that dream
Is possible. We must struggle
Together, remembering the pitfalls of
Yesterday’s lost battle as we

Prepare to
Reengage in endless, small wars to achieve the
In and inter
Dependence we so desire. Believing
Each moment in the power

& strength of our

Collective, self-determined, wisdom above all
Else. Directing whatever resources can be spared to
Liberate both ourselves and
Everyone else from
Bondage we never chose. We
Realize this fight will be long
And may last generations, but for
Today, let us say/sign/whatever
Into the heavens that we are here as
One community and we are
Never turning back.