Tag Archives: Silvia Federici

a nongreen wage

there is nothing tragic in the
  the logic of being moss
  perhaps the mouth goes dry
  maybe your vocabulary

slips, but
  the green is no longer just a color
  your mouth is no longer dry and you spout words as if
  your dictionary is on fire –

what is tragic is the logic of
  the nongreen wage, the math of
  the unfed mouth – what goes
  dry is the unsaid word,

the less than word, the feet that
  knew no ground no wall but wail
  this unfed mouth is word now
  that soots your green with rage –

—

These historic changes – that peaked in the 19th century with the creation of the full-time housewife – redefined women’s position in society and in relation to men. The sexual division of labor that emerged from it not only fixed women to reproductive work, but increased their dependence on men, enabling the state and employers to use the male wage as a means to command women’s labor. In this way, the separation of commodity production from the reproduction of labor-power also made possible the development of a specifically capitalist use of the wage and of the markets as means for the accumulation of unpaid labor.

– Silvia Federici, “Caliban and the Witch”

where do we go

where do we go to settle our debts once the rags have been
washed     when
          the rope of not-having-been
          closes round our

necks? do we stare into an abyssed ball for futures? does the
weight of a grassblade
          shake our weeded yet-to-comes?
          if through this word is to flow

the unheeded burn of the other’s weight     if through this word
is sifted the witch’s
          soothe and her meaning, the
          howl of burn & stitch of

war     if through this word is stone my brother & river my stone
would the calm
          of a paper heathen suppress care
          suppress her hooded scream?

Context
As I begin to familiarize myself with Silvia Federici’s work on reclaiming the commons and linking witch-hunting with the birth of capitalism, I attempt a playful weaving of some of her very powerful insights into verse.