Gwen
the dream began in a laboratory
as if haunted by the dark eugenics past
of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor,
shadows surrounded the buildings
where the records of everyone in the country
were stored on silent supercomputers
the plasma that simulated the D-layer of silence.
As if we were purposely put in the path of some ancient vendetta
as if a writer worked on a terrible psychological battleground
for which the enemy held the battleplan...
In the dream I was walking with Norbert Wiener in Cambridge
In a Shanghai prison during the Cultural Revolution
on the paper supplied by his jailors for "self criticism" Chinese artist
Mu Xin
After the War, Chiura Obata was reinstated as a professor of art at Cal.
I imagine him hiking with the Sierra Club,
once again sketching and painting
the mountains of California.
The spirit of John Muir walks with us in
the meadows, forests, valleys and mountains
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Archie
in the concentration camps
a metaphor for a system
Poet Jose Marti chained in a Cuban prison by the Spanish government.
Poet Heberto Padilla under house arrest in Castro's Cuba.
Polish hero, General Wladyslaw Sikorski.
Killed in a plane crash after he called for an investigation of the Katyn massacre
that could define our lives
without our knowledge
in laboratories across the country
union activist Karen Silkwood who died in a car crash; Iraqi Artist Nuha Al-Radi, performance
artist Spalding Gray
these things will become more evident
if the voices of those who have been hurt
and those who have knowledge of the systems and technologies
are not suppressed
the words of African American Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
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Dorothy
beautiful morning
blank canvas
like those that Quatrocentro painters created
in magical landscapes
in captivity in her own homeland
Carole Lombard's lost life, the films she never made
Audie Murphy -
the most decorated soldier in World War II,
he was killed in a plane crash on Memorial Day Weekend.
I searched for parallel histories
in the stories of the men with whom my husband served
I could almost see unseen hands pulling strings
on the deck of the Lexington in the Battle for Leyte Gulf
the darkly symbolic takeover by industrialists of the Bohemian Club,
the story of men with axes destroying Diego Rivera's mural
and then the dream shifted
When I woke up, the sun was shining.
I went to my studio and began to paint.
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Sid
the significance of the beginning of each day
a startling portrayal of relentless love
A few days after she attended a demonstration
against CIA interference in Guatemala, Frida Kahlo was dead
The artist was a young man when he created it.
But the drawing is remarkable for its expression of core human values
a life where his own work
was as equally celebrated
like many other artists, particularly women,
Alice Austen's work is under house arrest
at the intersection of Peachtree and 13th in Atlanta,
Margaret Mitchell was run down
something else I hadn't known
the diverse voices of our culture silenced by their covert attacks
Butterfly McQueen found it difficult to get work as an actress. She died
of burns after a fire at her home
A few year later, Arnie Zane was dead. Lost to AIDS
when they were finally freed,
Allan Houser was the first child born out of captivity
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scibe
code churning through the beauty of our lives, extracting phrases
how Calvino and his fellow soldiers in the Italian Resistance
fought the Nazis in the Ligurian Mountains
a story of the manifestations of total warfare,
a call
for shared strength
Norwegian American Gretchen Fraser,
a skier from the state of Washington
the entire 1961 US Skating team, and their coaches killed in a plane crash over Belgium
National Downhill champion Dick Buek
who died when his plane crashed at Donner Summit
those in whose victories the struggles are not always visible
Helen Wills.
The power of her forehand. The strength of her backhand.
She is wearing white on the beautiful grass courts.
The spiritual healing that we seek so difficult
knowing that our every thought and word and deed is observed
the lost live sounds of Glenn Miller's band and Jerry Garcia's guitar
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Cassie
a story where one of the heroes
when Roberto Clemente died.
It was New Year's Eve.
He was personally taking food and supplies to Nicaragua
There are losses of human spirit that take something intangible from all of us.
The death of Britain's Princess Diana
walking through the landmine
fields in Angola
forever a part of our lives
Jimi Hendrix and Mama Cass died in London.
British musician John Lennon. Murdered in New York City.
an end to the violence
the stark media graphic of red and blue states
is not the true story of our lives
The skies in which at night we see the stars
recorded in computer databases
without our knowledge
Who among us believes that scientists have the right
to experiment on people without their consent?
And in the morning when I awoke, all around the world, in every nation,
the bells in the towns and the cities were ringing for freedom and peace
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