A contradiction in five acts

From the river

We should focus on bread-and-butter issues.

Those are the ones

        that people feel in their daily lives

    and those will mobilize.

End genocide four thousand kilometers away

You cannot mobilize people

                through values and abstractions.

You must start from their

                direct

                    lived experience.

That's what will build up anger.

Tens of millions take the streets for more than one year

Complex issues

        that involve global politics

        as well as knowledge of history

    cannot mobilize the masses.

You need

        simple,

            immediate problems

    to agitate.

Four thousand pro-Palestine protesters arrested eleven kilometers away from Palestine

You can't rely on

        people's empathy

                    or solidarity

        to build a persistent mass movement.

You need to address

        people's direct suffering.

To the sea

Internationalism is 

    at most

        solidarity between national struggles.

A class consciousness for an international struggle

            does not exist.

People won't risk their own well-being

        without an immediate personal gain at sight.

Exam stress

When you write

            - I was told -

        you should write

        as if

            a worker is checking on you

                        over your shoulder.

You should be careful

            with every choice of

                    word, preposition, grammatical tenses.

Or else

        you might fail

            your class.

So I was told

And so I have written

Until a few years ago

When

The examiner

        wasn't behind me

        but instead

        in front of me.

More like an oral exam

            rather than written.

She asked me:

            - What is the solution?

I parroted some trivialities

            which I read in textbooks,

            capitalism, bourgeoisie, alienation, hegemony, class consciousness

                - the usual stuff.

She wasn't satisfied:

            - What's the answer?

My eyes shined.

            I had studied that part:

            revolution!

She was even less satisfied:

            - Show your work.

*

From here

            to there,

        step by step

                each step with rigorous proof.

My blood pressure spiked.

        I could feel my heart in my head.

What the hell?

A centuries-old open question

            could not be in an exam

        Could it?

Perhaps.

It's the finals, after all.

You never know.

*

But also

        you do know

        I do know

Facing the examiner

            facing the class,

        class is also facing me.

We have a problem to solve

                    or else we'll fail.

We have bullshit jobs.

To my friend who works as a receptionist in a convent-come-hotel in the city center

to my friend engineer friend whose job is to receive and welcome tourists into Airbnb's

to my fifty-year-old friend who rides a tuk tuk

to my friend's date who repairs electric scooters 

                                                        for young tourists' convenience in the hilly Lisbon

to my friend with a PhD who does morning bike tours

                                                        whenever his employee calls him

I say

    their jobs are bullshit.

They should never have needed to get those jobs,

    and their jobs shouldn't have existed.

Their jobs are not socially useful

    and their jobs destroy the city,

                                            the social fabric

                                            and the local economy,

                            and promote a hypermobile

                                                            ultraconsumerist

                                                                planet-wretching

                                                    lifestyle for the few

                                                and record breaking profits

                                                                    for the few of the few.

My friends know and agree.

They saw the impacts.

    First the poor had to leave the city

    then the elderly

    then middle-class families

    - they themselves also either left already or about to leave.

They also know

    that this is the exact same process

    that created the "exotic holiday spots"

                        in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

There were people there,

    now there are hotels instead.

There were communities there,

    now there are business opportunities instead.

I tell my friends

    to march with me

        for housing rights and an end to touristification

    to campaign with me

        to ban Airbnb's in our cities.

I recruit my friends

    to fight with me

        for the destruction of their jobs.

I admit;

    that neither the housing march

        nor the anti-Airbnb campaign

        have any proposals to give my friends any income security

    that the city's entire economy will have to be transformed.

I admit

    that we'll have to talk

        and figure things out together.

They march and campaign with me. I march and campaign with them.

*

Also

To my high-school friend who works as a flight attendant

to my childhood friend who works in logistics in an international airport

to my recent friend who works in a gas terminal

to my friend who emigrated during the crisis to work

                                                                in a transnational oil company

I say

    their jobs are weapons of mass destruction.

Their jobs shouldn't have existed

    and must cease to exist immediately.

The business they participate in

    destroys livelihoods

    disintegrates communities

    burns entire ecosystems

    floods entire cities

    makes countries disappear

    and collapses the physical-chemical conditions of a livable planet

        while making record profits for the few.

My friends know about the climate emergency.

    They see it now,

        and they have a sense of what is to come.

I tell my friends

    to march with me

    to take direct action with me

    with rage and solidarity

    for climate justice.

I admit

    that

        while we do have a plan to secure them jobs and income

    they will have to effectively fight against their current jobs

    if we want to have a chance to win,

    and that

    the entire economy will have to be transformed.

I admit

    that we'll have to talk

        and figure things out together.

*

 I must tell them the truth

    because they are my friends

    and because they are my class.

They will have to join me

    because of their friends

    and because of their class.

*

In short

A nuclear weapons factory worker

a soldier in a colonial army

a technician in an oil refinery

a real estate agent in the occupied West Bank

an administrator in a slave trading enterprise

a marketing consultant for SUVs

have a human right to not have these jobs

    and a class obligation  to fight against them.

Climate crisis means

    exponential growth in human suffering

    and run-away climate crisis means

            unstoppable exponential growth in human suffering;

is what I must tell my friends

    without hiding any bit of the meaning of it.

Post mortem

 He keeps dying

            in my dreams;

    which is the part I accompanied

                less

                    as I wasn't there at all

                and more

                    as I was checking in almost daily.

One summer, we went on holidays

        and discovered five new beaches.

Next summer, he wasn't anymore.

And now

        he isn't visiting me in my dreams.

        His death is.

    Which I find comforting:

    It confirms

        that I hadn't skipped over

                        his presence.

    The only closure I'm needing

                        is with his death.

So

he keeps dying

        in my dreams.

 

Não sei

 O que foi?, perguntou.

Só faço merda, respondeu.

Ficou confuso: Não percebo nada do que dizes.

Ninguém gosta de mim, fez de conta de esclarecer.

És bué toina, concluiu.

Que horror...

Convolution

Come, I said.

She didn't.

I had guessed so.

So I wonder

    why I asked

        if I knew.

It's not a wish, nor is it wishful thinking.

It's verification.

The purpose

    is to confirm

    that the world

        still obeys laws of nature

    and that one can predict

                                            loneliness.

It's a relief.

Wannabe Nazim

Welcome, dear baby

It's your turn to live.

Awaiting for you

    are

        the green leaves

        the 30% discount on a pack of hummus close to its expiry date

        the waves carrying surfers and industrial foam

        online memes of jumping cats

        and so on.

Awaiting for you

    is a world

        of getting roasted trying to flee a wildfire

        of drowning in flash floods that reach two meters in ten minutes

        of news and fake news

        of death and of birth

        and so on.

Welcome, dear baby

It's your turn to live.

Awaiting for you are

       anger

        fear

        love

        passion

        and so on.

Awaiting for you is

    revolt

    and so on.

Welcome dear baby

It's your turn to live.

Fifty year old carnations are dead carnations

 We march down the avenue.

Chants and slogans and banners.

It was expected and surprising

            for us to be so many.

A feeling of empowerment

                surrounds me

                but doesn't penetrate into me.

The next steps are the past steps.

The next steps are

                drinks with comrades

                dinner with friends

                tomorrow is a workday

The next steps are

                to take us where we just arrived

                                    where we already are.

Maybe it's time to stop for a moment

                        to ask for directions.

The Looks of It

 He looks tired.

        Sleepy.

        Exhausted.

        And tired as in sick and tired.

He doesn't look inspired,

                                excited,

                                    not even curious,

            as he tells me about their new action plan

                that I am finding inspiring,

                                                    exciting,

                                                        and smart.

Suddenly I become aware

        of how I talk about my own politics,

        and how sleepy

                            exhausted

                                and sick and tired

                I look

                    most of the times.

The sun is setting outside.

I leave the venue to catch some air

    I look at the grayish-blue sky.

  It's not dark yet, nor is it daytime anymore.

Check-in

 Turned to me

        and asked

        - How are you?

I checked the time

            my time

                and hers.

I checked myself

                and double-checked.

We are in a supermarket, after all,

        grocery shopping

She has bread in her basket,

            I have fruit.

This is becoming awkward, I notice.

        - Normal. How about you?

Resolution

 Last year, I read quite some poetry

                            classics, mostly

                    which I disliked deeply - up to major exceptions.

So I decided

                to write poems myself

                                            again

                    to regain self-sufficiency in my distaste.

This year,

        you'll see quite some self-embarrassing stuff

                                     as form and as content

                        coming up here.

No challenge, no goals, no excitement. No point.

Just

    a

        web

            log

                of

                    anguish.