If I Was President

If I was President The first thing I would do is call Mumia Abu-Jamal. No, if I was president the first thing I would do is call Leonard Peltier. No, if I was president the first person I would call is that rascal John Trudell. No, the first person I'd call is that other rascal Dennis Banks. I would also call Alice Walker. I would make a conference call. And I would say this: Yo, you troublemakers, it is time to let all of us out of prison. Pack up your things: Dennis and John, collect Alice Walker If you can find her: In Mendocino, Molokai, Mexico or Gaza, & head out to the prisons where Mumia and Leonard are waiting for you. They will be traveling light. Mumia used to own a lot of papers but they took most of those away from him. Leonard will probably want to drag along some of his canvases. Alice who may well be shopping in New Delhi will no doubt want to dress up for the occasion in a sparkly shalwar kemeez. My next call is going to be to the Cubans all five of them; so stop worrying. For now, you're my fish. I just had this long letter from Alice and she has begged me to put an end to her suffering. What? she said. You think these men are the only ones who suffer when Old Style America locks them up & throws away the key? I can't tell you, she goes on, the changes this viciousness has put me through, and I have had a child to raise & classes to teach & food to buy and just because I'm a poet it doesn't mean I don't have to pay the mortgage or the rent. Yet all these years, nearly thirty or something of them I have been running around the country and the world trying to arouse justice for these men. Tonsillitis hasn't stopped me. Migraine, hasn't stopped me. Lyme disease hasn't stopped me. And why? Because knowing the country that I'm in, as you are destined to learn it too, I know wrong when I see it. If that chair you're sitting in could speak you would have it moved to another room. You would burn it. So, amigos, pack your things. Alice and John and Dennis are on their way. They are bringing prayers from Nilak Butler and Bill Wapepah; they are bringing sweet grass and white sage from Pine Ridge. I am the president at least until the Corporations purchase the next election, and this is what I choose to do on my first day.