Calling All Revolutionary Artists: Raise Your Weapons
By Mickey Z.
20 November, 2012
World News Trust
“Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.” - Pablo Picasso
"Rock ‘n roll was revolutionary for me. Songs were weapons." - Patti Smith
When Percy Shelley called poets the "unacknowledged legislators of the world, William Burroughs declared artists to be the "real architects of change,” and Yoko Ono pronounced “true artists” to be prophets, I’d imagine they were referring to the kind of art that opens minds, shatters illusions, provokes independent thought, and challenges prevailing trends.
Mic Check: Such art is like revolutionary climate change, helping to create an environment of resistance in which drastic, systemic change can happen -- as soon as possible.
On that note, I’d like to share a poem of mine -- a version of which, I’m proud to say, is included in the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology.
Choose Sides in the War Against Imagination
Beat your drum with urgency
like CPR compressions seeking revival
Rap to the rhythm of a cultural crossover dribble
Sing a song that echoes like the warning cry
of a blue whale pursued by harpoons
Allow your camera's eye to expose more than meets the eye
Seize the stage to turn farce into drama and drama into farce
Bring your colors off the canvas
as a prizefighter rising before the referee's count
Make your guitar strings screech louder
than the howls that reverberate
through the hallways of a vivisection lab
Write entire novels on subway walls
Spray subversive graffiti down corporate halls
Choreograph a dance
to be performed upon capitalism's grave
Tap into the collective consciousness
Explore the universal energy
Immerse yourself in the spirit of the present
We need a culture with fewer reasons to grieve
Far more reasons to celebrate
There's a growing celebration
meeting at the corner of Empathy & Anger
What we're planning
is nothing less
than a global jailbreak
Prophets, unacknowledged legislators, architects of change
Needed now more than ever
Radical army of activists, freedom fighters, artists
We’ve reached the point of no return
Spread the word, raise your weapons
Because it's never too late…
Peace and power to all species.
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
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