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Ink in my Blood (poetry edition)
Helen Keller

Michael Ceraolo

She is at the children’s table literally and figuratively,
forever frozen for most folks at age seven
having just learned to say the workd water
in what was wrongly considered a miracle,
made the butt of a thousand jokes,
��but
not allowed to grow much older,
��though
she did write a popular autobiography
published in her early twenties
while she was a student at the sex-segregated section of Harvard
And, if she is thought of at all as an adult,
it is as the benevolent lecturer on the fact of herself,
��or,
as an international goodwill ambassador
putting America’s best face froward
��And
what is most buried by such treatment are her political views

Having,
��through her unfortunate illness,
��escaped
being one more Scarlett O’Hara,
�� she
would espouse equality,
�� sending a sizeable check
��to the NAACP,
having a letter printed in the organization’s paper
“Ashamed in my very soul
I behold in my own beloved south-land
the tears of those who are oppressed”


��And
she was (gasp!) a Socialist,
having earned the badge of honor of being investigated
by the FBI and military intelligence
“Every modern war has had its root in exploitation”
“we hear fear advanced as an argument for armament”
“The few who profit from the labor of the masses
want to organize the workers into an army
which will protect the interests of the capitalists”
“Be no dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction
Be heroes in an army of construction”
“Our worst foes are
��ignorance,
��poverty,
��and
the unconscious cruelty of our commercial society”
��And,
even before women had the vote,
she recognized the futility of the franchise
“We vote?
What does that mean?
It means that we choose between two bodies
of real,
��though not avowed,
��autocrats”

��And
she was patronized and put down for such statements,
not being engaged in debate because of her disability
“It would be difficult to imagine
anyting more fatuous and stupid
than the attitude of the press toward
anything I say on public affairs”
��And
when the editor of The Brooklyn Eagle
was especially fatuous, she fired back
“Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle”
“The Eagle and I are at war”
The editor had of course said she was blind and deaf
(must have previously been an investigative reporter)
and she:
“When it fights back, let it fight fair”
“I cannot see or hear
I can read”
“If the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle should read”
“he might be a wiser man,
��and
make a better newspaper”
“If I ever contribute” “the book that I . . .dream of
I know what I shall name it:
Industrial Blindness and Social Deafness”

��And
the biggest taboo of all,
the fact that she was a sexual being,
��having
come close to marriage on one occason
(a marriage which would have run afoul
of eugenics-inspired laws that prohibited her;
in the irony of ironies,
she had spoken in favor of eugenics)
“All the . . .instincts and desires of the heart,
��which
neither physical disabilities nor suppression can subdue,
leap up within me”

Now she was not perfect,
��and
wrote and said things I don’t agree with
(like everyone else who ever lived;
I’m not sure I agree with everything I’ve ever said)
But the defining characteristic of the adult table
is that perfection is not required,
��and
she deserves to be engaged on the same terms
as any other adult.



Scars Publications


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