An Open Poem to Iowa in support of Bernie Sanders. This poem is to inspire the base and to encourage those who are to the fence to feel the Bern, show up at their Caucus, and vote for the America we want to be. 


About the Poet: 

Corie Feiner is the Poet Laureate of Bucks County, PA. An award-winning poet, performer, and educator, she is the author of the adult poetry collection, Radishes into Roses, and the children's book, Who Was Born at Home? Her poetry has been widely published in journals and anthologies, and her performances and workshops have received praise in The New York Times, Backstage Magazine, The Philadelphia Intelligencer and on the radio, TV, and the web. A tenured Poetry Editor of the Bellevue Literary Review, she is an MFA graduate of NYU where she studied with Phillip Levine, Galway Kinnell, and Sharon Olds.

Personal Bio: 

Corie Feiner lives in Yardley, PA with her husband, Uri Feiner, and their two young boys. Uri has been a long time supporter of Bernie Sanders. He was part of Bernie’s original campaign for governor of Vermont. Corie Feiner has been commissioned to perform her poetry for multiple artists as well local municipal and government events and dedications. She is the unofficial poet of the Senator Steve Santisiero (D) campaign. 


Open Poem To Iowa: On Behalf of Bernie Sanders

Are you feeling the Bern, but have to vote for Hillary. If you've got the swing state blues, listen to this.

SwingStateBlues

This was written the day after the U.S. 2016 election:  

The Day After

She woke up to red numbers, not a neon sign, 
they grew like a cancer that should’ve been benign, 
flashing on the screen in disbelief’s shine, 
the autumn leaves wither brown in the rain. 

The mother with the wool hat and Grateful Dead shirt
head hurting like an ingrown nail in the dirt, 
drinking her turpentine in her pantsuit skirt, 
the Titanic has crashed again. 

The Brooklyn Jew could tell you I told you so, 
but there is no point when his ship didn’t go, 
Nothing is unsinkable. Didn’t you know? 
Wake the kids, and get the life jackets again. 

This morning Farmer Dave is still at his field, 
the fall has been too hot for his soil to yield 
his squash and red potatoes lost the deal, 
you cannot buy the rain. 

Joe Jackson said to himself, I can’t believe he won. 
Today it is storming, where is the sun? 
His protest vote has begun 
to sink in the day after. 

Maggie May took down the sign from her lawn, 
it was bigger than her house, she was a madman’s pawn, 
for a change that was not a change, but a stillborn dawn
sinking in the new day, the day after.  

The market digested the news overnight
the captain of the ship did not starboard right, 
the icebergs are melting, tell the kids we’ll be alright, 
but the Titanic has crashed again. 

He has buyer’s remorse for something 
he cannot return, the ring is shinier 
when the skunkweed burns,
we elected a king, when will we learn
the Titanic was a manmade disaster. 

The self-coroneted queen didn’t win, 
heads in hands, her soldiers sinned, 
we gave the roulette table a pissed off spin
and now we have to pay up, again. 

The newsman can’t believe the unsinkable sank, 
we have only our arctic denial to thank.
The signs were all there but let me be frank
greed is the real disaster. 



By Corie Feiner
November 9, 2016

The Day After

Once You Frack….
By Corie Feiner


Old MacDonald had a farm - 

I didn’t expect the water from my faucet to ignite 
like a slight of hand sold to me from the tongue-toothed man 

with a suit and a tie and a crooked lie about how a simple
one-two frack could save our farm and give us back 
what was lost like a stray cow on pasture. 

E-i-e-i-o - 

When they said it was like a well, 
they didn’t tell me about the dead cow smell
that would overtake our land instead of clover. 

I wish this was over, but once you frack 
you cannot go back to unbroken land, 
undo the sand that was pumped into 
the skin of my great-grandfather’s earth. 

And on the farm he had a cow - 

And I want you to think next time you drink your water 
that it might be your daughter next to rash red
and to die before she is dead 
with the benzene that was left behind. 

It was our choice to frack, but like Saul Williams said, 
Sh-clack-clack. There are more ways than one to become 
a slave by the way we behave, living our lives in a polluted grave.  

And I’m not sure who to blame in this game of drill,
pump, water, sand, gas, leave, Uncle Tom, Uncle Sam, Uncle Steve – I can’t breathe,
the stink coming from my sink is like a methane bomb. 

Was I wrong to say yes? He said it would do no harm.
It would pay for my struggling farm – 

the cows, the house, the pasture, but when I saw the water trucks coming fast, sure, 
I panicked like the gas flare fire, who is the liar? 
 
Me? Or them? Or is it you? 

With a moo, moo here,
and a moo, moo there…

An earthquake in Oklahoma makes as much sense as a newborn with sarcoma – 
a cancer that appears out of nowhere like magic, but it’s not.  
It’s tragic, because we gave it to ourselves. 

Earths mantle and core are skin and bone, and water and shale and stone. 
And don’t you know, nothing on this planet lives alone. 

Here a moo, there a moo
Everywhere a moo, moo. 

If you break and poison and pump and leave 
the only think left to do is bleed. 

Believe me, I didn’t expect my water to ignite, my cows to die, my earth to shake
and shake and shake. Man, it was a mistake. 

Old MacDonald had a farm - 

It is too late to undo what was done, 
but its not too late to turn to the sun, 
to forgive us for our sins and remember
the answer is still actually blowin’ in the wind. 

E-i-e-i-o.


 
 


Once You Frack...

From Plymouth Rock to Standing Rock
By Corie Feiner


Every day is a day of thanks, bend 
and whisper to the orange fleshed squash, 
Welcome, like the Wampanoag welcomed 
us to Plymouth Rock and taught us
to harvest blueberries and beach plums, 
hunt for wild turkeys and geese, 
make nets out of woven reeds, 
and plant corn, squash, and beans
together and call them sister. 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. 

I have boiled down the cranberries
into gel, I have ground the corn
between two sacred stones. 

I have lifted the fresh water
to my lips and chanted, 
Water is not a weapon. 

I have closed my bank account
and I have stood at the entrance 
to the Backwater Bridge,
and I have shaken the small pox
from the borrowed wool blanket,

and I have built a monument
in a mason jar,
and I have said enough to the dirt
that is starting to die,

and the river told me yesterday
that treaties are not made to be broken
and that the mountain that is filled with gold
belongs to no one, 

and that water is not made 
to purposely freeze our fingers
to the bone, and that pipes 
are made to be passed
in peace circles. 

What will happen if we stand long enough? 

The president has pardoned the turkey,
but not the Sioux. 
Reparations are long overdue. 
Standing Rock, I stand with you.

From Plymouth Rock to Standing Rock

This is another poem in my "Current Events as Poetry"  series. This is for the Veterans for Standing Rock. (The father in the poem is representative for all of our fathers.) 

Self-deployment
- By Corie Feiner


Yesterday, my father took a jitney cab to JFK 
and rummaged through the black garbage can
where he threw out his green air force uniform 
forty-seven years ago. 

It was ragged and full of gum and split, 
but it would have to do. 

He borrowed his diabetic brother’s leather boots, 
let the polish settle deep into the grain and said, 
This is worth standing for. 

And although I am no seamstress, 
I will sew him an upside down flag
to take with him on his 1,600 mile walk
from Brooklyn to Standing Rock.  

And if he, or any other self-deployed soldier, 
should pass my house, I will take him by his ungloved hand
to McConkey’s Inn and I will show him
where Washington penned his letter to say
that to cross the icy water in the dark 
was our only chance for freedom. 

I will pack for them a pouch of wool socks, 
salt fish, bread, and prayer to take with them 
on their walk.  Not for revolution. This time. 
But to interlock their arms around a drill pad, 
to protect the sacredness of fresh water, 
to protect us from ourselves. 


- Dedicated to Wes Clark, Jr., Michael Wood Junior, and the Veterans for Standing Rock



Corie Feiner is the 2011 Poet Laureate of Bucks County, and the author of Radishes into Roses and Who Was Born at Home? She is an award winning educator, performance poet, and slam champion with an MFA from NYU. She is dedicated to sustainable living, composing and performing her work for good causes, and to cultivating community. www.coriefeiner.com / info@coriefeiner.com.

Self - Deployment

Weeks after the 9/11 attack, people were encouraged to go back to work as rescue workers rummaged through toxic rubble with no respirators or masks. 

Now, 15 years later, they getting sick and dying from cancer. I wrote this poem in 2003. Perhaps now we can finally listen, finally learn.  

Here is the text of the poem:

RETURN TO BABYLON

"Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York that their air is safe to breathe  and their water is safe to drink," Whitman said. ~ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, September 18, 2001


Three weeks later, you were told it was safe
to go back to work. No more buildings would fall,
no support beams would lumber like drunk 
old men and pass out in the street. 

Machine guns and green fatigue 
surrounding street corners and tunnel mouths. 

You were told to go shopping
You were told the air was fine. 

You are still scared of elevators lifting 
you floor by floor from the ground. 
You are still scared of airplanes landing
in Queens, so close to the earth the air breaks in two. 

You were told to go back to work. 
You were told the air was safe. 
You were told your cough was nothing. 
You were told it was stress. 
You were told to go to therapy. 
You were told the air was safe. 

For months, you breathed in the lead
of 50,000 crushed computers, 
220 floors of mercury, 37 floors of asbestos, 
crushed and burned with bones.

You were told to go back to work. 
You were told the air was safe. 
You were told to go shopping. 

You were sent into poison and dust.
You were sent to slowly choke.

The air is safe.
Go shopping.
Business as usual.
Back to normal.
For oil, we ruin nations. 
For economy, we ruin ourselves. 
Our terror is bright orange lie.
Fear of losing our jobs.
Fear of losing what is sold to us as safe.

Breathe in mercury.
Breathe in dust.
Breathe in the undocumented dead.
Our still burning breath.

Return To Babylon.wav

Corie Feiner reads her poem "I Can't Tell You Why", inspired by the events of the Boston Marathon 2013. Corie Feiner is an award-winning poet/performer and the former Poet Laureate of Bucks County. www.CorieFeiner.com

Corie Feiner - "I Can't Tell You Why"

"wonderfully plain-spoken poetry and delivery" - The New York Times

Corie Feiner is the 2011 Poet Laureate of Bucks County, and the author of Radishes into Roses and Who Was Born at Home? She is an international performance poet and slam champion with an MFA from NYU. She loves local farms, cooking from scratch for her family, biking, and standing for what is right. www.coriefeiner.com / info@coriefeiner.com

Corie Feiner

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