Poems by Sam Friedman

MIMEOGRAPH

None of the young activists today
know the horror
when the typed-in stencil tears,
when the hour typing the message moves
from "all but done" to
"do it again"
with the unacknowledged fear of
"again and again and again"
stiffening fingers
towards errors anew.

Nor do they know the glory
of the spinning Gestetner
spitting copies galore,
the pile creeping upwards 'til the stencil
wears out,
or the joys of collation
when a pamphlet, just printed in hundreds
sits piled self upon self,
each page its own tall pile,
10 piles on a table,
3 tables the row.

We sang and we chatted
before we could party,
we sang as we circled
the tables' neat row,
a sheet for each pile, then
step to the next,
place sheet upon sheet,
then step to the next
'til a pamphlet sits splendid
in your inky hands
and you place it akimbo
on the pile to be stapled
and circle again,
take a sheet from a pile
and step to the next,
the circle unbroken
tha thelped break Jim Crow and
undid the Army then un-doing in 'Nam,
the stencil, the circle,
the battle not ended
though my friends have grown old
and the young find new ways
to fight the same-old same-old
ever-different, ever-indifferent
killing greed.

Copyright © Sam Friedman, 2011, all rights reserverd.

[Back in the '60s, long before photo-copying, Kinkos, computers, laser-printers, email and web, the motor-driven "Gestetner" was the top-of-the-line mimeograph machine best suited for long runs of flyers and pamphlets.]