COLLEGE WALK

by Philip Kitcher

Students and neighbors are suing the school [Columbia], magnifying the broader complaint that institutions stifle free expression when they restrict access to public spaces following protests. —The New York Times, March 27, 2025
 
 
The locals used to wander through.
No obstacles. They’d pass
the open gates. They’d spend an hour or two
kicking a ball, or lying on the grass.
 
No student ID was required,
no need to fear
they were unwelcome. Young ones were inspired
to think they’d study here.
 
Now it’s a fortress. Honeyed words can’t stem
the nagging fear
that higher education’s not for them:
they are intruders here.
 
Officials at the shuttered gates divide
the privileged from neighbors. Must they feel
that they are destined to remain outside?
Can wounds inflicted daily ever heal?

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, GOOD FRIDAY 2014

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

Image source: Occupy Beale Air Force Base*

                      for Roger Stoll and Kate Raphael


We stand outside the Air Force base
To grieve the deaths of innocents
Assassinated thousands of miles from here
By missiles fired from unmanned planes

We have come to deliver a letter
To the base commander
Insisting that the drone attacks be halted
In the name of our common humanity

In the broad field in front of the base
Redwing blackbirds are singing in the long grasses
And we wonder what songbirds there are
In the mountains of Pakistan, the deserts of Yemen

And we wonder what is the last sound
That the unsuspecting victims hear
Before they are obliterated from above
The twittering of a small bird? the roar of the approaching missile?

When jet fighters take off every few minutes
Their diabolical roar obliterates all other sounds here
We cannot hear if the blackbirds are stunned into silence
Or if they continue singing in defiance of the din

With our letter in hand we cross the line
Onto the Air Force base
And are immediately taken into custody
By polite young men and women dressed in camouflage

In the guard house the MPs are respectful and solicitous
As they ID and fingerprint and photograph us
Then hand us each a letter stating
That we are banned from the Air Force base forever

Children incinerated in drone attacks
Simply for being in the wrong places at the wrong times
Were not treated with such courtesy and consideration
Before they were banished forever from our shared life

One by one we are escorted back across the line
No war planes are taking off just now
And we allow ourselves to feel a flicker of hope
Hearing the redwing blackbirds singing in the long grasses


* Drones flown from Beale Air Force Base, near Marysville, California, do not fire missiles, but do reconnaissance and targeting for attacks by other drones.


Buff Whitman-Bradley is the author of four books of poetry, b. eagle, poet; The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik; and When Compasses Grow Old; and the chapbook, Everything Wakes Up! His poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. He is also co-editor, with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley and Sarah Lazare, of the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.  He has co-produced/directed two documentary films, the award-winning Outside In (with Cynthia Whitman-Bradley) and Por Que Venimos (with the MIRC Film Collective).  He lives in northern California.

FASHION

by Victor D. Infante

                                          For Geraldo Rivera

When I was 17
I bought a leather jacket
at a thrift store, affixed
a pair of handcuffs
to the shoulder,
and adorned the lapel
with pins from punk bands:
The Specials, The Clash,
Stiff Little Fingers.

I bought a tattered black trenchcoat
for $5 on a school trip to New York,
got home and paid a Russian woman
15 bucks to repair the tears. Didn’t mind
when the seams unraveled. Wore jeans
which were more hole than fabric.
Scribbled them with anarchy symbols,
clipped bits with safety pins.

My hair was neglect –
neither short nor long,
sometimes spiked,
briefly blue, except
that its natural darkness
resisted tinting. The dye
faded quickly. My hair
remained midnight.

When I was 17,
I couldn’t surf
but loved the ocean.
My skin was golden brown.

Strangers assumed
I was Mexican. Once
a cop half-jokingly
asked me for an ID
when I sold him Doritos
at the 7-11 where I worked.
I had a driver’s license, although
I didn’t drive. I had a history
of walking because I didn’t
own a car. I had a history
of violence, although I’m sure
the cop couldn’t tell that from
my identification, just shrugged
and returned it, and I never
spoke of it again, until now.

When I was 17, I had a problem
with authority. Had a mouth on me
but I wasn’t stupid.
Didn’t bait cops. In fact,
had sworn off fighting entirely.
Each punch seemed to wear
the seams of whatever it was
that held me together.
I was fraying like worn jeans
and a cheap trenchcoat.
I held myself  together
with pins.

When I bumped the crazy boy
while running to class, I took
his hits and kicks, until a teacher
pulled him off me; She had seen
the attack, and saw I didn’t fight,
so I didn’t get in trouble. The lesson:
Don’t fight. Don’t run.

When a jock took some childhood trauma
out on me by the lockers, I ate each fist until,
bored, he wandered away.
The urge to reply pulsed in my fists.
My legs ached with the urge to run.
I counted the cost
of what I was trying to prove.

I’m a long way from 17, now.
Haven’t faced a fight in years. Don’t
know what I’d do if I did. I’m paunchy,
my skin has paled from indoor living. Still
wear leather and trenchoats, wear
my hair long, but cops don’t look at me
funny anymore. Too old, too white.

I read the news about the boy in Florida
with pockets full of Skittles and iced tea;
who wore a hoodie walking home in the rain;
how the TV bobble-head says the hoodie
is as responsible as the gun,
as if damaged children never jump
those they perceive as weaker.

I wonder what, at 17, I would have done
if I’d faced what that boy did,
what words would have burbled
from that teenage cauldron
of combustion and leather.

I’m afraid I know the answer.
I would not fight. I would not run.

“Go ahead, coward — shoot me.
What the fuck are you afraid of?”


Victor D. Infante is the editor in chief of Radius: Poetry From the Center to the Edge , and the author of City of Insomnia, from Write Bloody Publishing.