Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Amy Young

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. 

***

Planetology

by Amy Young

Nothing is as it seems

    and everything is as it seems.

Without truth this is true.

    The song sparrow who

this morning trills

as usual and the horizon

    which has gone

in a matter of minutes

    from pink to gray—

these truths are solid.

But yesterday we were a free

    country. Or maybe it was the day

before that. And that seemed

    true too. Though the sky is

always redder in hue

looking back. Rose-colored

    glasses and all that.

My ancestors are groaning

    in their graves. They used

a compass rose to arrive

at this shore. So, we can’t really

    be sure of anything anymore—

can we? Even the sparrow

    singing full throttle

atop the crepe myrtle

seems at best a shaky

    proposition. At the very least

a grey dawn will sully the sky

    as we rise again. They say the sun

isn’t due to burn out, yet.

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – rae leone allen

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. 

***

by rae leone allen

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Edward D. Currelley

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. 

***

I AMERICA

by Edward D. Currelley

America is my home

 This, is where I’m from

Generations past my ancestors

Were stolen from their home land

 Brought here in chains

Generations since

 We’ve worked hard to be Americans

This, without choice

 Because, for the most part, it’s all we know

We’ve been given reluctant invitation of assimilation

 Un-equal justice, after the fact

We are made to feel like occupying refugees

This state of reality wasn’t asked for

It was forced upon us

We remain the only race of people in these United States

 Not given the choice of coming to these shores of our own volition

There has never been an open armed welcome

 Benefits or opportunity un-earned

Give us your weak, poor etc, never applied

Though we’ve managed advancement, assimilation

 We as a people continue to struggle

 Within the structure of a nation in denial

 A nation of false promise, blinded by its own dark truths

A nation in fear of its own reflection

A nation unwilling to correct its misdeeds

Of challenging the truths of its origin

These are our American realities

James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed,

But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – John W. Ogilvie

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. 

***

Loyalty Oath

by John W. Ogilvie

First they came for a fractional, marginal, minuscule percentage.

That was not me, so I said “Give Trump a chance.”

Then they came for the mainstream media.

But I had other media, so I said “He’s sure making a change.”

Then they reached in my wallet to pay for the wall.

I said, “Not what you promised, but I’ll sacrifice for my country.”

Then my job didn’t come back, and I lost my insurance, and my taxes went up.

But I was still loyal. Tired of the damn tweets, sure, but I still hoped he would turn it around.

Then someone took a shot at him. It wasn’t me.

“That’s stupid, and just plain wrong!” I said.

But he sent in the Feds, and now they have all my guns, and I’ve sworn allegiance to Trump. 

I wish to God I’d understood sooner who he really is.

-- with thanks to Pastor Martin Niemöller

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Persis Karim

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. 

***

Lament for Airports

by Persis Karim

Where we land and take off,
where we imagine our flight
and freedom, where we greet
our relatives for the first time
or again after a long absence,
where we elate at the arrival
of a friend or a grandfather
sick with cancer in need of care,
or where we depart for a vacation
where the weather is warm, or to
a place that calls us back, even if
it is no longer home, or to a country
we've dreamed of seeing since
childhood, or because we must leave
where we were born out of fear,

where we wait, where we anticipate
runways and gates, where we stand
in long lines to undress and dress,
where we rush and run so we're not late,
and bear gifts, baggage, and histories,
where we call to say goodbye or report
our status or the delays or express
our love before we ascend into the ether

at the station that connects us
for a small moment in the human
traffic of miles and kilometers and time
zones, where our molecules gather
at one location and cross the border-
less sky in cold and light and dark
through distance and distant
feelings across this small planet
without suspicion or names
or the need for a passport

only to now find that the strange

comfort of being a passenger,
a traveler in the intimacy of an airport
that once saved us from blindness
now tests us at the gates of a country 

we no longer know or recognize.

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Keisha-Gaye Anderson

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. 

***

The Day After: 2016 Presidential Election

by Keisha-Gaye Anderson

After this day
you will not make a
fetish
of what you call my
"poverty"—
the stable you built
for me
to walk in circles
servicing machines
that push food down
your bottomless gullet

We are done dancing on
your stage
we will no longer compress
the fire of our stars,
netted in flight
diverted down into dirt
to illuminate
the cave
that is your mind

We are
to redeem you
but, only if you let go of
skin
rejoin a journey of
knowing
admit that you are blind
out of tune
sleep walking
insane

and we will take you back
recalibrate the crooked parts

Or, you can dissolve down here,
fodder
for the next idea
spun by the mind
whose night terror
unfortunately

took on your face

Makes me no difference
we were never a part of this
race

to nowhere

And soon,
we are going

home

Poems of Resistance, Power & Resilience – Reuben Jackson

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. 

***

What Are You Prepared To Do?

by Reuben Jackson

You cannot:

Task force

Facebook

Meditate

March

Jargon

Or

Call your

Congressperson

This

Away.

Neither a latte

Nor a  cadaver stiff

Drink

Will fix

Or make these

Hard cold blues

Say

“I’m sorry

I jacked your

Rights”.

(Neither will

An Oprah special.)

When they go low –

You go……

Where?

To quote Sean Connery

In “The Untouchables”-

“What are you prepared to do?”