Poems For Rebels

Select poems from the work of journalist, analyst and digital street philosopher Caitlin Johnstone. Show Me An Old Rebel Do not show me a young rebel, whose eyes are bright and whose tail is bushy. Young rebels are fine and good, but they are merely doing what the young are meant to do. Show me an old rebel. One who keeps punching when his hands are arthritic, when her hair is white, when his friends are all dead, when her knees are shot, when it hurts him to pee, when her shoulders are so bad that it would be much easier to punch down than to punch up. Show me an old rebel who keeps standing up after being knocked down over and over again, year after year, decade after decade, who after the thousandth blow merely spits out a tooth and says "Son, you have no idea what you're dealing with, do you?" Are you a young rebel? Are you Sticking It to The Man? Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs and knocking over their word castles? That is fine. Youth will youth. But show me a young rebel who became an old rebel, who stuck with it through the setbacks and the beatings and betrayals, who watched the hippies become yuppies and the protesters become pundits and still kept a fire lit amid the monsoons of infiltration and the hurricanes of heartbreak. Who will close their tired eyes for a final time without ever once having cast them to the ground or peered up in imploring subordination. That, my friends, that is a true spirit. If you are still a fiery rebel even as everything is ripped away from you, I will be humbled and awed by you, because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave. And I will know that whatever you find on the other side will be met with that same defiant glare. And I will sing your song when you are gone.