left copped out coopted by right1
let our children play out the folly of our plight
mindful eyes shut to keep out the light
shall we just play peekaboo with night?
—
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
Audre Lorde, Power
1. “Right coopted Left copped out” – Coined by my friend Faraz Hussain while discussing how adept the mainstream is in appropriating all progressive talk and defanging it of radical potential.
Gathering just-a-bit-o moss 
Audre being a little harsh? Like your poem though. Has some swing in it.
Thanks 🙂
Audre says it like it is. The increasing weight of oppression is less and less up for polite agreeing-to-disagree discussions. That only strengthens the status quo, swerving sharply towards the right as we live and breathe.
Howard Zinn’s “you cannot be neutral on a moving train” is an apt metaphor for this where he compares history to a moving train: neutrality (or politeness) is to claim ignorance of the train’s journey, and that is very much like being born yesterday: you can be made to believe anything.