Puma Perl

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Losing the Way

I know I put the directions somewhere.
You turn left; I remember that part.
Stop at a picket line.
Join a march to the next demo.
Sit down at a protest but get up
before they arrest you.
Wave goodbye to your friends
walking up the middle road.
Stay to the left.
Your compadres may go right
but that won’t happen until later.
After the bombs.
After the weather people.
After the ticker tape.
The directions to the revolution are lost.
Forever.
Mao was a mass murderer.
Fidel was a dictator.
Eldridge Cleaver went all Christian fundamentalist
and Huey Newton went all cocaine and guns.
Let’s not even talk about Russian history.
The revolution is out there.
There are no directions, never were.
Don’t bother to look for them.
Vote with your feet, vote in the street
we used to chant, running down the avenue.
Milk was a dollar a gallon and gas was thirty-one cents.
What we didn’t know, what we never imagined
would become our reality.
Throw away the directions and stir.



Puma Perl is an award-winning poet, journalist, and writer, with five solo collections in print. She was the producer/creator of Puma’s Pandemonium, which brought together spoken word and rock and roll. She is front woman of The Puma Perl Band and she has a new album available, “Under Tenement Skies.”