Artwork © Ira Joel Haber

 

America

America was walking down the street minding America’s own business
when America came out of an unmarked van in a mask
and threw America on the ground, pepper-sprayed America in the face,
zip-tied America and shipped America off to a holding facility
where America was denied medical care, spit on, and sexually assaulted
by America.

None of that is true. It wasn’t America.
It was just people.

 

Noah Berlatsky (he/him) is a freelance writer in Chicago. You can find a list of his poetry collections and chapbooks, as well as his writing on politics and culture, at his newsletter: http://www.everythingishorrible.net

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had nine one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 300 online and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Creative Artists Public Service Grant (CAPS) two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. in 2017 & 2018 he received the Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA artist-in-residence grant.