Avotcja
Avotcja is a poet, radio producer, playwright, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, and radio DJ.
Avotcja is a long-time Oakland resident who embraces her linguistic and musical heritage from the United States and Latin America in a flexible identity expressed in her book of poetry and prose With Every Step I Take 2 (Taurean Horn Press 2022), and her performances with the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra and Avotcja & Modupue, with veteran American American jazz musicians Francis Wong and Jon Jang.
She is a member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities Organization), PEN Oakland, California Poets In The Schools, Local 1000 American Federation of Musicians, and an ASCAP recording artist.
Photo by Tom Erlich
The Everpresent Rhythm of Dreams
In an inappropriately humble attempt
To take
Some of the overwhelming (purifying) pressure
Off the hard working folks of Arizona & Alabama
I rented an upscale storefront
And opened a ritzy Employment Office
To help Anglicize the workforce in the fields
It was just my small way to silence the fury
To put an end
To the rage of the unemployed American citizenry
And fill all the seats
Behind every Sewing Machine in the Garment Industry
With card carrying children of
The Daughters of the American Revolution
It was my hope
To replace the ungrateful, rabble rousing College kids,
Wild Afro hair, Dashiki wearing & minimum wage earning
Paperless Farm-workers, as well as all those alien looking
Service Workers & Janitors in the Office Buildings,
And Hotels & Hospitals with
A patriotic army of “all American good old Boys”
On the day we finally opened
We stood feeling good, we had done our homework well
And had left no stone unturned
We were ready for the job hungry crowds
We opened those doors @ five thirty Monday morning
Complete with smiling faces
And a Capucchino with every Application
Nobody came…
Tuesday, Wednesday, it was the same old story
Thursday, Friday, Saturday & even Sunday
Nobody came…
And the following Monday
To add insult to injury
We only had one applicant who could barely stand up
And he thought we were a Blood Bank
Oh well, I tried
Many have tried to turn this stupidity around
Many, much wiser than me, have died
Trying to make this world, a world worth living in
Truth is,
We are everywhere, we just don't sell newspapers
I can only hope
The powerful beauty of the un-newsworthy majority
Will succeed
In drowning the ugliness of the disciples of hate
But life goes on
And I continue to dance & write & cry & laugh
And scream in the face of madness
And I’ll go to my grave singing about castles in the sky
Still hanging on to rainbows
Still standing
Standing strong
And still living in the rhythm of my dreams!!!
Previously printed in Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area, edited by Shizue Seigel, Pease Press, 2019
Reflection Question:
What is the tone of this poem? What is the purpose of satire?
How has labor been politicized in the U.S.?
And how do the politics of labor show up in your community?