Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Liz Minette

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