JIM TRAINER'S POEM OF THE WEEK, A Request From Jim Trainer
EVERY DREAM TO COME TRUE MUST END
the sleeping no better than the waking
the alms you surrendered carping freight
we victimize for our savior
the perfect dark gets marred
and hued blue by contusions of daylight
his message is no secret
the truth is a garden of walls
we mouth the words, pen and pin
anything wan or tender
and routinely
in penitence
we kneel, still as targets
as our prayers line up to shoot us down
Tennessee is on fire. TikTok is the people’s platform. Your non-public data isn’t safe there but neither is it anywhere. The “Master Admin” of Beijing might extract information from users’ external browsing sessions but he doesn't have more on you than Mark Zuckerberg or the US GOV. The Patriot Act is another story and though the names and faces have all changed the story is the same. I’ve learned more about my rights in confrontations with police, current events, bills and legislative process on TikTok in the last 2 months than I ever learned in 14 years on Facebook. And I’ve been waking to the reels of these fucking kids, mad enough for all of us and making TN legislators rightfully scared to leave the building without first making sure our children won’t get murdered when they go to school—on TikTok.
I slept on the hearings while I was running and gunning in Babylon. I lost 3 gigs in 2 months and now I’m unemployed but that ain’t the half. For the last month I was putting hours in on the day job, to support my Art like I do, but I could only fulfill my hours there and was mostly too-tired to take in and react to the news, when I only had a 6-hour window between when I got off and when I was due back in. It’s getting harder and harder to make it here and if you want the real, assuring and transformative Art that has sustained you your whole life you’re gonna have to show it now.
I’m reaching out to you personally because without Art I’ll never survive. When I look back over my “memories” on Facebook, I find I've only subsidized a site with my work and your interest in it. Your interest and support, invaluable to me, only contributed to a billionaire’s platform that sold your data and cooked the election for the worst President we ever had. If it could get any worse, ask you—how aware are you, how much raw footage of the protests in TN have you been entreated to on their algorithms, or even on major news-networks like CNN? Right, your remarks and feelings about it, ok, but, hello…information?
This is a demand for your support, that you look alive and support the Arts actively. We’ve all been waiting for it, the drop—that moment when we’re up against the wall. It’s been happening since FDR. The middle class has been rolling back since it was created. But these last and final moves are certain, as we voice our outrage passively, and as long as others know we’re angry (or at least can plainly see we are), we continue to participate in observant-culture and, as kids get slaughtered, codify corporations that only bring us news that toes their line.
If you want the real, assuring and transformative Art that has sustained you your whole life you’re gonna have to show it now.
I’m unemployed now and instead of spending all my time trying to support my writing I’m just writing. In my underwear in the court as the reels of these young and proud citizens play. You needn’t wonder what fascism looks like from the inside. It’s been a slow and years-long turning and these final strokes are as dire as they seem. Throughout my career as a poet and performer, I’ve done nothing except try and convince you that if the voice from the people on the street ain’t the truth it’ll get us through until it gets here. Social media isn’t compromised. We are. I’m nauseous from posting my work among the daily musings, virtue-waving and vanity—but I understand.
You’re lonely. You feel helpless. Me too, Good Subscriber. One thing you can do is join me on my network where 𝑣𝑜𝑥 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑖, 𝑣𝑜𝑥 𝑑𝑒𝑖 (the voice of the people is the voice of God). I’ve got posts up here behind a paywall. In addition to the poetry I’ve gladly sent you are essays on the dying artist in the final century, and how networks like Twitter only champion the first amendment when it’s idol worship and hate speech. 664 of you follow me on here. If one-tenth of you subscribed to me at $80 a year I’d make more than I would bartending and I’d be bringing it to you straight and unfettered, your everyman out on the street. In addition, if 50 of you signed on as a Patron for the cost of a Netflix subscription I could supplement my income on the road, where my work lives and breathes.
Your support of my Art will literally keep me alive. Without art, none of us will survive, and I’m not sure you’re aware of that yet. You’re as inured and punch drunk as I am. The only thing you can do after dinner and dishes is scroll, opt for the convenient check-out and mindless reprieve. I don’t blame you. But you are supporting billionaires that at best are sealing our fate with their fame-worship and at worst enabling fascists and demagogues. S’ok but I can’t participate. Public debate is closing. Our outrage on on social media is an ad. Don’t get me wrong, it needed to happen. We needed to end up here. The NYT will never be able to walk back from taking W’s side for the war on Iraq. We needed Facebook and Twitter because we needed the Arab Spring. We needed to know that our voice and speech and ideas and words could prevail. We needed the truth and a democratization of media but neither exist there. And pretty soon my work won’t either.
Meta and Twitter are corporations and their product is you. We’re selling the adwork for them but, for me—if I’m a product then I want to be delivered straight to you. The TikTok hearings were prima facie the lobbying power of Meta, and an edified corporatism sworn in with the People’s United decision, overseen by a war criminal at the end of the American Century. These sites are hemming us in. You want to do something about it then support me. Subscribe, sign on, buy a book, read me. Throw me a booking contact and give me your couch for the night and I’ll come and tell it. Actively support the arts. Wake up and look alive.
I am asking for your support.
Thank you,
Jim Trainer
AUSTIN TX