Saturday, January 28, 2017

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Liz Minette

Close up image of a microphone on a stage. The audience that is facing the microphone is blurred, appearing as a myriad of colors (red, white, green, yellow, etc.)
As the incoming administration builds its agenda of attack on marginalized people, on freedom of speech, on the earth itself, poetry will continue to be an essential voice of resistance. Poets will speak out in solidarity, united against hatred, systemic oppression, and violence and for justice, beauty, and community.
                
In this spirit, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. For the rest of this frightening month, January of 2017, we invite you to send us poems of resistance, power, and resilience.

We will post every poem we receive unless it is offensive (containing language that is derogatory toward marginalized groups, that belittles, uses hurtful stereotypes, explicitly condones or implies a call for violence, etc.). After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to the White House.

For guidelines on how to submit poems for this call, visit the Call for Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience blog post


***


my scorpio broke
By Liz Minette

keychain, with its
faded little homily
on back noting
lucky day and
numbers

-

it rattles around in the car
coffee cup holder

radio reports
the people are
standing strong,
sacred stone
camp, to keep
pipeline, big oil
& security w/ dogs
too beautiful to
be attack animals
from hurting
our mother

at the same time
north dakota
unleashes its
nat'l guard

-

i glide to
intersection,
birch and thomsen,
soft tap break -
that's when i see
the cat, her long tail,
deflated, slender body,
her goddess face,
smashed -

too wrong
for morning, or

anytime

-

a night hit -

or maybe,

on purpose

-

she was sleek,
the coloring of
louise, the cat
i couldn't keep
so many years
ago

-

i'm on the freeway,
still thinking
about the cat
when i see a
state trooper,
car hiding
below the
40th ave w
viaduct

it slinks out
behind me,
passes and
whips lights,
pulls over
a car with
rez plates

as i pass
the pulled over
driver, a woman,
w/long, black hair
& voluptuous face,
she puffs her cheeks,
and sighs

-

more news:

the local police
are still looking
for natalie m.,
a native woman
who disappeared
a year ago,
journeying north
to see family

marches & rallies
in her honor, in
hopes of finding
her and all the
disappeared
native women
& girls

who are
possibly
probably
trafficked
to the
bakken
oil
fields

that same
broken
earth
shale take
that would feed
the pipeline
the people
are protesting

-

when i get to work,
i do the one thing
i can at this moment

call the county
about the cat

the office worker
i talk to says
road crews
just came off
4 10's but
says she'll
do her best

-

today is
monday

sept 12th
2016

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