Forum Post: 83 people died when they stormed the Bastille, a poem

a revolutionary poem

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<P> unless you are willing to freeze to death

in the tiny square

in manhattan, ny

you should pack up your tiny pack

and go home.

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<P> it is not the 900 men

and maybe women

who won France for france

it is the 83

it was their parents’ rage stoked at a funeral

it was having somewhere to put it

revolution was a box

to put rage inside

and rage, like freedom is a force

almost always won by death

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<P> you should know

that the Bastille

is now only a foundation

and a foundation is built upon words

words are very important

but they never buy freedom

and never will

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<P> words

can be met by words

unlike life

which can be met by bullets

or fire

or water

or almost anything

the Constitution

is filled with words, too

as all Constitutions are and will be

but they are bent like ships

ablaze and melting into the sea

they are made crooked like arrows when they hit a tree

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<P> but, young man

or woman, maybe

if you make a cardboard sign that reads

I will freeze in this square

in manhattan, ny

come December

for freedom

then a frozen noose

may buy your homeland some air

tell then to bury you under the cobblestones there

under the bank

under the shadow of the cross at St. Paul’s

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<P> then, and only

will you have anything in common

with the unnamed soldier

who died at the side

of General George

and passed this nation on down to you

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<P> it’s always blood

that signs a document

it’s always blood

that wakes an old man from his dream

it’s always blood

that waters a cactus in another man’s desert

it’s always blood

bags of it, that keep the banks in business

it’s always blood

that the legs

tend to need

and it freezes

at twenty-seven degrees.