Photographs from Zuccotti Park
Notes on Zuccotti Park One: Mic Check! A Pay Check Away From You. 
Mic check!
They are just a pay check away from being you. Take strength
Keep your courage, for yourself
And for them, they need you.
They who are today up there
Imprisoned– parked in concrete shelves—scraping the skies.
In these towers rising all around you
Surrounded by walls
Clinging to a useless fantasy that these streets are meant to lead them
To those paved with gold
But no! Yours is the golden path.
You who sit here in the park, enclosed by police barricades-
Liberated by thoughts, your dialogue.
Under an October night sky without stars
Sounds of your drums beat the police sirens
And rise above the din of ongoing construction
Called Freedom at the crossroads
Of Trinity and Liberty.
And there, a surveillance—NYPD tower
And a sign that says no skateboarders allowed in the Park.
Winter’s mist begins to rise off the damp pavements.
You see the lit windows high above
And you think they shine like places light years distance from you
Here in the park in the darkness below,
As though signaling–a passing, to you.
Silhouettes framed in the windows high up above you
In amber light, they appear caught in an eternity of fear, petrified.
And you sympathize
For rents have to be paid, mortgages met
What happens if there is no pay check?
They know they are just a paycheck away from you.
As you Mic check, in your attempt to reach them,
They know this too: it is not light that distances them from you—
They are just a pay check away from you.
Notes at Zuccotti Park Two: Truth Parked
You park those questions of yours
Whose words you sense form truths
In the margins
Of your note book and note taking
In the in between spaces.
Here, where you’ve parked those questions
Truth arrives, resides fleetingly
As if an encampment of nomads
And refugees—who know that sooner or later
Concerns for hygiene will erase them.
Outside the windows of your places
From where you dare not look out
Frightened by the prospect of something new-
In these in between spaces
From the margins you know have spilled out
Whole articulate manifestos in these between spaces.
In these margins you’ve parked the truth.
As you sit around your conference tables
Frowning with purpose into your blackberries
Avoiding looking outside your windows at all costs
Trying to ignore the sound from the streets below you
Taking notes diligently, religiously, faithfully
You know half in dread half exhilarated that
You have heard this sound these words all before
Its time you know:
It is possible, not just inside your head
To change the score.
Where does it breath?
This truth—so fleetingly
So where does it breath before it goes?
In those spaces, it lies amongst the lies.
In the margins,
Of note books, like yours
In the deviations from
Dutiful and diligent copious
Official note taking.
In the pauses
And cracks.
In the whys?
In the : Oh really?
In the opposite
In the opposition.
In the pauses and halts
Before, during and after
The Whys?
That’s where it tries to breath,
Move,
Dance.
March—and skateboard and bike.
It tries.
That’s the space:
In between the in between places.
You say you’ve heard it all before and
You say that
Truth does not bear repetition.
But Repetition can bare truth.
Notes on Zuccotti Park Three: Prophets of a New Age.
You are the transforming sages
Of an advancing age bringing a way forward that is new–
This autumn new flowers bloom
Here in the park
You are the prophets
Talking of new human relationships
Built on friendships and cooperatives
Of Commons.
You are the wealth of nations
You are the
Prophets of a new age
In a world
Where profits are made for a few
On speculation and nothing produced
Where citizens are reduced
To statistics of foreclosure and homelessness
And joblessness grows
And people are laid off every day
And factories and farms are closed.
And freedom of speech becomes undisclosed.
You are the wealth of nations
You are the
Prophets of a new age.
Out here shivering and staying out in the cold
Trying to cure
Your country —the world
Of an unchecked epidemic of greed.
Here in the park you are the transforming sages
You are the wealth of nations
You are the
Prophets of a new age.
Notes on Zuccotti Park Four: Mic-Check-Mic-Check
Mic-check-Mic Check
Fingers shivering, quivering, fluttering in approval
Every single sentence, words, repeated, amplified, expanded
By people
Standing
Side by side.
The ones in front say and hear
What the ones in the back say and hear
There is no front there is no back
Everyone speaks and repeats
Everyone a leader here.
Everyone a reporter here
Everyone a historian and the documenter here.
Mic-check Mic Check
There is another way
Mic-check Mic check
Rampant greed is not the way
Mic check, Mic check
Stop the wars and killings
Wonder why the media aren’t embedded here.
Mic check, mic check
Create jobs instead of wars
Mic Check—mic check
Time to check if basic needs are being met
Mic check mic check
Wasteful wants cannot go on.
Mic check Mic Check
Food, shelter, jobs for all!
Mic Check, mic check
Tax the wealthy commensurate to their wealth
Mic check Mic Check
Question how they made their wealth
Question how to society they pay this debt.
Mic check Mic Check
Make them payback taxpayers wealth
Mic Check Mic Check
Philanthropists my ass!
Mic Check mic check
To adjust for all the years
In which the rich have not been taxed—
Erase all students' debts—
Oh Yes!
Mic Check mic check
Refinance and infuse cash to homeowners
Remove a portion of their debt
Fingers shivering, quivering, fluttering in approval
Each single sentence, words, repeated, amplified, expanded
By people
Standing,
Side by side.
The ones in front say and hear
What the ones in the back say and hear
There is no front there is no back
Everyone speaks and repeats
Everyone a leader here.
Everyone a reporter here
Everyone a historian and the documenter here.
Notes on Zuccotti Park Five: Rapt in Decency
Wrapped in shimmering autumn leaves, the city
Steps softly on her toes amongst a citadel
Of refugees, rapt in decency’s grace at her feet.
Gestures to the breeze go gently here
Stays the rain for another night
For these children in quiet hours
Just now, only have, fallen asleep.
Cradling in her arms
Warm sheltering blankets
Stitched and woven with her million stories
Of desires and dignities
Sewn words from every language
Voices of the world in her streets
With these, the city covers, each,
Claiming them, all her, children.
The city tip toes tucking them in—
Embraces each rapt in decency’s grace at her feet
Tired, worn out—determined and free, caring.
Out in the open, naked to the elements
Yet, this, the only sanctuary.
There rests a boy not yet shaving-
Chin propped by a fist,
A desire still for thumb to lips–
And over there a girl just a wisp in army boots
No less, too big for her—tough
a pet dog napping at her feet.
There slumbers the child white hair—
Thinning—beard grey—
No harm shall come to hers so dear.
Wrapped in shimmering autumn leaves, the city
Steps softly on her toes amongst a citadel of refugees,
Embraces each rapt in decency’s grace at her feet
Gestures to the breeze go gently here
Stays the rain for another night
For these children in quiet hours
Just now, only have, fallen asleep.
The city watches as the attendant breeze tidies up
Picks up a cardboard sign here,
Props it up next to the satchel there—
Unfurled stripes turn checkered as the breeze curls
The banner to cover a sleeper there—no fear,
The city watches her children through the night—
And look now dawn too is near.
By Maniza Naqvi
Also by Maniza Naqvi:
The Kreutzer Sonata in Addis Ababa
Battle Songs: These Children Can’t Be Bought
Hitched In History to Crimes Against Humanity
Imagining Lyari Through Akhtar Soomro
Rimbaud and Insider Information on Disasters Foretold
Expressing Fidelity Through Sorrow's Hope
Losing the Plot: Habits of the Heart (Complete Novel)
The Art of Resistance: Under Siege
The Leftist And The Leader (A Play)