blood cape

These moments burn within us, within me, hiding and falling into memories softening wash

the occupation has shown me~

homeless Anarchists standing in the snow~ handing my two sons fresh cold soda pops while in the other hand they, and the group of them, hold torches and laugh while my kids sat in sleds and looked for MLK

i've walked home from churches after all day marches to take and hold bridges against the rain pouring night walking up the hill with 10 blackbloc brothers and sisters with black and red flags and blood capes flying tired of walking but happily take the streets, back to Camp
while cars gently just drive around us, the police ignore us and let us peacefully walk home in the street not chanting~ but together like a slow black car
on fire

Mic checking some Lt. while he is trying to give orders to his SWAT team, while he tries to tell our occupiers that this is the last chance to come out, out of a home that has been empty for seven years and full of ghosts~ and recently remodeled to become Water, a straightedge, artists residence~
When the Lt. tells the people inside that this is their last warning i shout back at him, this is your last warning, and some cop turns to stare at me and i stare back until he turns away

And Cami relentlessly talks and talks to a wall of blue, officers and talks until two of them break down and cry, because they are here to evict homeless youth on Christmas eve steal their backpacks and tents and lock their food inside houses nobody else can afford, and the cops cry and i cry and have to walk away

while inside the house laying on the top stairs Shanti and Ben Zen sit in fear, because they don't know what's going to happen to them, for hours all they can hear is the police and see the spot lights, surrounded
Until we, finally arrive with a hundred others to surround the police and witness this eviction
and when we start Mic Checking, they can hear us and they tell me later, that that is when they knew they'd be alright, they wouldn't be killed, shot or beaten

and the swat team opens the door with a turn of the knob because it's unlocked and thirty five police officers walk in with assault rifles, shotguns and handguns

to arrest ghosts

while i freeze in the dusk, standing on the corner of 23 and cherry with a huge mass of blackbloc fighters waiting for the speeches to end so we can march to the police precinct to condemn their actions on the streets

while watching the smiles spread across people's eyes as the ACAB banner is thrown over street lights

enlightened at the top of the hill when we are met with buckets full of torches and we march down hill to the precinct~ because we are going to burn it down

standing back to back with Thomas, Halloween night stopping drunks from destroying our dreams of a new world with homes /shelter and food for everyone

which i walked away from and swore i'd never go back until DW and P and R hand built the ART and Armory tent which grew to three stories and five bedrooms and was going to grow constantly outward to encompass the camp~ the city~ the world !

the Monday morning phone calls screaming for help as the police destroy our beautiful 500 tent wonderland~ and voices telling me that they were trying to save the art~
as the parks department loads all their gear, backpacks and crushed tents into garbage trucks

parked inside the U10 building with everyone painting and singing and riding conveyer-belt, skating the basement floors and building this NOW ! how happy i was running home to get more paint / wanted to get a mop and bucket to paint a huge floor piece
walls came down and lights came up and we cleaned and organized and ate diner and heard knocks on the door, cut holes in the roof and rewrote the words to the world ~on walls for free forever

but i had to go home and didn't take pictures and I left you there

to build a new world

for at least one night

NE!L~