Title: Defenders
Subtitle: dedicated to the U’nis’tot’en Land defenders
Author: Ron Sakolsky
Date: 2016
Notes: Fifth Estate #396, Summer, 2016
3-s-fe-396-15-defenders.png
Activist with the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation in northwestern British Columbia protecting indigenous lands from oil and gas development. August 2015. (RedPowerMedia.WordPress.com)

Broken leather latch

time’s dispatch

an oil-stained suitcase

containing

tar sands underwear

surrounded by

industrial overwear.

Over where?

Not over here

you bastards

not anywhere!

This ain’t

no time

for caged canaries

with velvet beaks.

We must bite

the hand that feeds us

tonight.

We will sing

our splintered songs

to shred

skylines

borderlines

and pipelines.

We will dance

to the beat

of 100

studded walking sticks

hitting hard

on the frozen ground.

We will roar

to the sound

of rising spirits

breaking hearts

and cracking heads.

We will crash

and burn

under the

blood red moon

and come again.

Hell yeah

we will

come again

and soon.

We will

move together

like 1000

homeless moles

loosed from the earth

at the quaking

crack of dawn.

Never mind

the blood money

falling

from the

rusted wormholes

in the sky.

Never mind

the hollow hiss

of bus-in-ess

as usual.

Never mind

the cash registers

ringing out

their siren song

of legal tender

love gone wrong.

Never mind

the ledger books

balanced on

dinosaur bones

unearthed

beneath our feet.

Bones

Ancient bones

Bones for sale!

Never mind.

It’s all good.

Don’t weep.

It is

what

it is.

Go back to sleep.

No, wait

Wake up!

Do not disturb

those decayed bones!

Disturb the disturbers instead!

Ron Sakolsky is an anarcho-surrealist who lives and writes on Denman Island, BC. His latest book is Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? See review on Page 36.