----- Original Message ----- From: "Mitchel Cohen" <mitchelcohen at mindspring.com> To: <mitchelcohen at mindspring.com> Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 10:42 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] On Pinochet's Death (Poem/Song)
> Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead!
>
> In late summer of 1973 I was completing my last weeks of my 4-month jail
> term in detention in Riverhead, Long Island, when Augusto Pinochet led the
> overthrow of the elected Socialist government in Chile, headed by Salvador
> Allende. The coup was organized by Henry Kissinger, the CIA and
> International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), with additional funds
> provided by the multinational copper leviathans (Anaconda, Kennicott,
> etc.). I began this song at the time, not knowing what else to do to keep
> my sanity when the world was on fire and I was trapped behind bars, and
> updated it later when Pinochet finally went on trial for those awful
> crimes a few years ago. By coincidence, on the very day of my release from
> prison ITT's offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan were blown to
> smithereens. My release and those bombings are inextricably tied in my
> emotions, in my memory.
>
> On Pinochet's death last week I drank a toast to Victor Jara, the
> beautiful troubador and national folk-hero murdered by Pinochet, before
> heading off to the usual round of meetings and protests.
>
> Feel free to invent your own tune! Be creative, demand the impossible!
>
> Mitchel Cohen
>
>
> ON PINOCHET'S CAPTURE
>
> I awoke one day it was early September
> A prisoner in my own land
> For fighting against the war that my country
> Was waging against Vietnam
> How sad I remember it came over the news
> Jangling the bars to my cell
> That Chile had fallen, the great eagle's talons
> Had gauged out its insides, 10,000 slaughtered
> And Chile, O Chile fell to the fascists
> Socialist Chile fell.
>
> I leaped from my bunk to the bars like a madman
> Desperate to bend them escape
> Riverhead prison had hold of my body
> But my heart Santiago did take
> As Pinochet swept through the gray streets at dawn
> And murdered all who'd protest
> "I protest. I protest, you bastards let me out"
> I screamed and a guard sneered: "You're next."
>
> And the corpses piled high in the weeks that followed
> Rats feasted on bodies that lined every block
> Allende had stood strong defending his office
> Pistol in hand, so cowardly shot.
>
> And who to hoe the ungrown rice
> The painted murals, bulletproof dreams?
> Kissinger crashes the gates of Eden
> CIA toasts the success of their schemes.
>
> Chile, O Chile
> They're murdering your soul
> If only the muse had whispered to Allende
> Arm yourselves, Arise.
>
> My four months ended I flew like a demon
> Out of that prison as dynamite's wings
> Blasted ITT's Park Avenue office
> For Chile, serve notice, prove freedom still rings.
>
> Chile, O Chile
> They're murdering your soul
> If only the muse had whispered to Allende
> "Arm yourselves, Arise."
>
> "We are 5,000 this noon," Victor Jara sang
> In the Estadio Nacional
> They smacked his guitar till it was in ruins
> No resistance songs they'd allow!
> Yet vibrant and powerful poems sprang from his throat
> His hands beat the rhythmic sounds;
> On Pinochet's orders the evil sword flashed
> And Victor's hands fell to the ground,
> His severed hands fell to the ground.
>
> "Sing now, Victor Jara," wrists shattered and torn,
> "Sing now, we have chopped off your hands!"
> An icy wind rattled the stadium's bones
> Shivering through every land.
>
> Song, I can't sing you when I sing out of fear
> When I am dying of fright
> Eternal silence screams out from my heart,
> Fascism's sirens the night.
>
> Victor stared at his hands in the dirt,
> Each finger broken once wandered Joan's hair,
> Palms, now dead, that so often stroked her face,
> These bleeding stumps where his hands once did hang
> "Don't let them defeat you," her voice sliced through his pain
> And Victor opened his heart and he sang!
>
> His song for the people, for Chile, for love
> For freedom he sang as he bled.
> Today Pinochet sits in a prison at last
> And Victor's songs rise from the dead
> So sing, Victor Jara, the rice has matured
> And the words bubble out of your tomb
> Now a million are marching on Pinochet's jail
> All humming Victor's last tune!
>
> Sing, Victor Jara,
> Your song's on every lip
> The workers are rising again!
> Rise up! Rise up! Throw the fascists aside,
> Nothing to lose but your chains
> And a world to regain, to win.
>
> One Hand, one heart
> Chile, O Chile
> We've learned our lessons well
> Today the torturer stands trial for his crimes
> And Pinochet's sentenced to hell,
> Pinochet's sentenced to hell.
>
> I awoke one day it was early September
> A prisoner in my own land
> For fighting against the war that my country
> Was waging against Vietnam
> How sad I remember it came over the news
> Jangling the bars to my cell
> That Chile had fallen, the great eagle's talons
> Had gauged out its insides, 10,000 slaughtered
> And Chile, O Chile fell to the fascists
> Socialist Chile fell.
>
> TO RISE AGAIN ....
>
> - Mitchel Cohen
> Red Balloon Poetry Conspiracy,
> & Brooklyn Greens / Green Party
>
>
> You can buy Mitchel's new book of poetry (this poem's not in it), "The
> Permanent Carnival," by sending $14 + $1.35 in postage,* to
>
> Mitchel Cohen
> 2652 Cropsey Avenue, #7H
> Brooklyn, NY 11214
>
> (If you already have the book, thank you very much! Please send feedback!)
>
> *If you'd like a copy of the book but can't afford that, just send
> whatever you can afford and I'll send you a copy, don't sweat it! (The
> first printing is almost sold out, so .... )
>
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