Ed Werstein
Disobedience is to refuse to buy into the spectacle. To turn off the TV and think for oneself. To doubt, question, even laugh at authority. To maintain a healthy skepticism in the face of all “official” proclamations.
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At Home and Barefoot
Like a discalced Carmelite
I’m barefoot again.
Poetry’s the culprit,
always poetry.
I don’t know why the reaction
manifests (pedifests?) itself
in my feet, but it is less painful
than having the top of my head
taken off.
This morning it was a line from di Prima,
the only war that matters is the war against the imagination
I halted
re-read the line
and felt the chill.
I looked down on my exposed toes
and my Goldtoes lying there
halfway to the wall.
It might be Stafford,
Your one little fire that will start again
or Ferlinghetti
comparing Willie Mays to a footrunner from Thebes.
The first time it happened
it was a line from Levertov,
Tolerance, what crimes
are committed in your name
and I felt the air between my toes
my socks launched with such force
they were airborne.
I don’t have the same problem
in the library or the park
or on the bus, but
tell me, who reads poetry
at home
with their shoes on?
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Ed Werstein, Milwaukee, spent 22 years in manufacturing before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. He advocates for peace and against corporate power. His poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Stoneboat, Mobius: the Journal of Social Change and a few other publications. His first chapbook, Who Are We Then?, was published in 2013 by Partisan Press.