Lane Hall—Overpass Light Brigade
I have always been interested in trans-disciplinary art forms and the multiple ways in which artists and writers create meaning. For Verse Wisconsin, I invited people working within the context of recent political struggles. I was interested in foregrounding art that has direct presence in various communities and found that the contributors to the project are fellow activists brought together through the Wisconsin Uprising, and who continue to struggle for environmental sanity and social justice, even within these grim political times.
Photo by Overpass Light Brigade
Songs in the Key of Resistance
The police come in swarms today,
in predator waves,
jackals culling antelope,
scanning the room,
not for the
easy,
efficient
takedowns,
but for the ones they most begrudge.
They lope into the rotunda,
four,
eight,
ten of them,
surrounding singers.
Our energy changes,
intensifies,
feels jagged,
anticipatory,
fragile.
Three
hundred
or more singers
stand close to each other,
defiant and loud,
crouching for cover.
Songs
bounce off marble
and architectural
splendor.
The police come in waves,
five times in the noon hour
of singing.
I want to believe in goodness
somewhere in hearts.
I only see
cold calculation.
Surrounding a singer
in rough embrace
asking first.
Unlawful, intense
No one will disperse.
The police perform wrist-twist ties
with satisfaction of jobs well done.
The singing gets louder
With people dragged down.
The police come in waves today,
slicing through the crowd
like sly dogs
hoping to bite.
Singing
is power
And the cruel dogs
with their leash men
make still the songs louder.
The waves of policemen weave
through expanding crowds.
Every arrest
a struggle
between
silence
and
song.
—Lane Hall
