Author: Dark Daughta

if what you’re reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again…then link me. if what you’re reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you,

 I think that one of our collective failings as Black peoples in the west has been our collective choice to move away from understanding class, class divisions and class oppressions consciously, critically. There was a moment, a time when…

 I think that one of our collective failings as Black peoples in the west has been our collective choice to move away from understanding class, class divisions and class oppressions consciously, critically. There was a moment, a time when the forefathers and foremothers did not concern themselves with whether those who

A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM By Emmanuel Ortiz Before I start this poem, I’d like to ask you to join meIn a moment of silenceIn honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and thePentagon last September 11th. I would also like to ask

A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM

Before I start this poem, I’d like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing…
A full day of silence…
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where “homeland security” made them aliens in their own country.

Nine months of silence… for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence…for the millions of dead in Vietnam – a people, not a war – for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives’ bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war…ssssshhhhhhh…
Say nothing…we don’t want them to learn that they are dead.

Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have
piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem,
Seven days of silence… for El Salvador…
A day of silence… for Nicaragua…
Five days of silence… for the Guatemaltecos…
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
 
45 seconds of silence… for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas…
 
1,933 miles of silence… for every desperate body
That burns in the desert sun
Drowned in swollen rivers at the pearly gates to the Empire’s underbelly,
A gaping wound sutured shut by razor wire and corrugated steel.
 
25 years of silence… for the millions of Africans who found their graves far deeper in the
ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
For those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees
In the south… the north… the east… the west…
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.

From somewhere within the pillars of power…
You open your mouths to invoke a moment of our silence
And we are all left speechless,
Our tongues snatched from our mouths,
Our eyes stapled shut.
 
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest,
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence…
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be.

Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
 
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1973.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground amidst the ashes of amnesia.

This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history uprooted from its textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

This is not a peace poem,
Not a poem for forgiveness.
This is a justice poem,
A poem for never forgetting.
This is a poem to remind us
That all that glitters
Might just be broken glass.

And still you want a moment of silence for the dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children…

Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

So, if you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships

Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the e-mails and instant messages,
Derail the trains, ground the planes.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.

Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all…
Don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
 
And we,
Tonight,
We will keep right on singing
For our dead.

if what you’re reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again…then link me.

At the end of the day I still understand the war between right and left to be a war of ideas, knowings, visions, spirit and words.

Artists, writers, singers, lightworkers, counselors…all those who work in some form with the dream/soul/emotional core of revolution are important. We hold that uncomfortable kernel, the prescient ember, the wise wisp of something resilient that is passed from person to person, that canNOT be destroyed, that forms the foundation for revolutions that inevitably spread like wave upon wave over the planet time and time and time again.

We are part of the change.
We see that change is possible.
We demand change with our images, our voices, our words, our blood beats.

We call out for a new world in times when the old ways constrict. We are a necessary and precious good. We are meant to be right here, right now doing the work of holding and sharing that vision in whatever ways we can.

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

― Arundhati Roy, War Talk

if what you’re reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again…then link me.

At the end of the day I still understand the war between right and left to be a war of ideas, knowings, visions, spirit and words. Artists, writers, singers, lightworkers, counselors…all those who work in some form with the dream/soul/emotional core of revolution are important. We hold that uncomfortable kernel,

9/11 On this day in 1973: A U.S.-backed military coup topples the democratically elected socialist government of Chile. The right-wing military government lasted for 17 years and lead to the imprisonment, abduction, and murdered of thousands and thousands of leftists. Victor Jara (1932-1973) was a Chilean musician, songwriter, and socialist

9/11

On this day in 1973: A U.S.-backed military coup topples the democratically elected socialist government of Chile. The right-wing military government lasted for 17 years and lead to the imprisonment, abduction, and murdered of thousands and thousands of leftists.

Victor Jara (1932-1973) was a Chilean musician, songwriter, and socialist activist. Jara was a leader of Chile’s vibrant political folk music renaissance, the ‘New Song Movement’. Jara was promptly arrested by the ’73 rightist coup, imprisoned with thousands of others in a stadium, tortured, and finally executed. But his songs could not be killed.

This was the last song Victor Jara wrote before he was murdered in Pinochet’s 11 September coup in Chile in 1973.

Yo no canto por cantar
ni por tener buena voz
canto porque la guitarra
tiene sentido y razon,
tiene corazon de tierra
y alas de palomita,
es como el agua bendita
santigua glorias y penas,
aqui se encajo mi canto
como dijera Violeta
guitarra trabajadora
con olor a primavera.

Que no es guitarra de ricos
ni cosa que se parezca
mi canto es de los andamios
para alcanzar las estrellas,
que el canto tiene sentido
cuando palpita en las venas
del que morira cantando
las verdades verdaderas,
no las lisonjas fugaces
ni las famas extranjeras
sino el canto de una alondra
hasta el fondo de la tierra.

Ahi donde llega todo
y donde todo comienza
canto que ha sido valiente
siempre sera cancion nueva.

*****************************************

I don’t sing for love of singing
or to show off my voice
but for the statements
made by my honest guitar
for its heart is of the earth
and like the dove it goes flying….
endlessly as holy water
blessing the brave and the dying
so my song has found a purpose
as Violet Parra would say.

Yes, my guitar is a worker
shining and smelling of spring
my guitar is not for killers
greedy for money and power
but for the people who labour
so that the future may flower.
For a song takes on a meaning
when its own heart beat is strong
sung by a man who will die singing
truthfully singing his song.

I don’t care for adulation
or so that strangers may weep.
I sing for a far strip of country
narrow but endlessly deep.

if what you’re reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again…then link me.

Why I Won’t VoteBy W.E.B. Dubois, The Nation, 20 October 1956 On October 20, 1956, W. E. B. Du Bois delivers this eloquent indictment of US politics while explaining to Nation readers why he won’t vote in the upcoming Presidential election. Du Bois condemns both Democrats and Republicans for their

Why I Won’t VoteBy W.E.B. Dubois, The Nation, 20 October 1956On October 20, 1956, W. E. B. Du Bois delivers this eloquent indictment of US politics while explaining to Nation readers why he won’t vote in the upcoming Presidential election. Du Bois cond…

“The election of Obama was one more triumph of illusion over substance. It was skillfull manipulation and betrayal of the public by a corporate power elite. We mistook style and ethnicity – an advertising tactic pioneered by Calvin Klein and Benetton – for progressive politics and genuine change.” In short,

“The election of Obama was one more triumph of illusion over substance. It was skillfull manipulation and betrayal of the public by a corporate power elite. We mistook style and ethnicity – an advertising tactic pioneered by Calvin Klein and Benetton -…