Poems For Rebels

Select poems from the work of journalist, analyst and digital street philosopher Caitlin Johnstone.

Show Me An Old Rebel

Do not show me a young rebel,

whose eyes are bright

and whose tail is bushy.

Young rebels are fine and good,

but they are merely doing

what the young are meant to do.

Show me an old rebel.

One who keeps punching

when his hands are arthritic,

when her hair is white,

when his friends are all dead,

when her knees are shot,

when it hurts him to pee,

when her shoulders are so bad

that it would be much easier to punch down

than to punch up.

Show me an old rebel

who keeps standing up after being knocked down

over and over again,

year after year,

decade after decade,

who after the thousandth blow

merely spits out a tooth

and says "Son, you have no idea what you're dealing with,

do you?"

Are you a young rebel?

Are you Sticking It to The Man?

Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs

and knocking over their word castles?

That is fine.

Youth will youth.

But show me a young rebel

who became an old rebel,

who stuck with it through the setbacks

and the beatings and betrayals,

who watched the hippies become yuppies

and the protesters become pundits

and still kept a fire lit

amid the monsoons of infiltration

and the hurricanes of heartbreak.

Who will close their tired eyes for a final time

without ever once having cast them to the ground

or peered up in imploring subordination.

That, my friends,

that is a true spirit.

If you are still a fiery rebel

even as everything is ripped away from you,

I will be humbled and awed by you,

because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave.

And I will know that whatever you find on the other side

will be met

with that same defiant glare.

And I will sing your song when you are gone.