In Justice. Poet Aja Monet on Audre Lorde’s “Power”
By: Aja Monet
Tags: Power Trip, Poetry, Poem, Audre Lorde, Power

In Justice

after “Power” by audre lorde

howling in the wound of words,

a tongue trembles with the tension of truth

the difference between poetry and rhetoric

is there’s a world outside your door

knocking inward, a voice hungers fearless

wooed by courage

a deliberate impulse

the ability to turn a knob

alter or shift

action

a window is a mirror

of risk, a poet writes

to balance the scales of power

yet feels the absence of power

perhaps instead of, rape

i ought to say, he forced a sweating throb

liquored moans, mangled morning, a rufie stone

turned me inside out, studded wet, worn

too tight, busted bruise, came and went

i was a ghost, a rage no one can see

i killed myself a little to enter

the memory so close

i choose not to resurrect the devil in details

and the country still a culture of take or be taken

violently, the United States is a forced entry

on stolen land, the Supreme Court weaponizes words

against flesh, law is made

still a poem is not a knife or gun

or food

unless the knife or gun is a pen

or clothes

a pen is only a sword

of feelings

not a home

not louder than a bomb

is not flesh or blood

not a condom or pill

cannot unrape you

nor undo your doing

yet a poem is a doing still

warbling within

an ear, eye, mouth or touch

a living beneath words

how we respond to power

reveals our power

more or less

a flex or relinquish

tug, push, pull, demand or plead

a wrist dancing between fist and open palm

to kill or be sacrificed

murder is murder

i aborted the child

it did not leave me like a dove or bittersweet farewell

i sucked the life i did not want away

the proof is in the pudding i cannot swallow

a poet writes to balance the scales

any child that dies

cannot undie in a poem

nor can a jury undie our children

there are no words to heal or bring back the dead

remember

you cannot unkill a part of yourself

with dreams or kisses

poetry or rhetoric

awards, accolades, pensions

money or comfort

marches or protests

judges or prisons

losing a child is a suicide

the whole world silent

a voice lost in the difference

between killing yourself and killing yourself

love

and death

what we resist will amend

or slaughter us

there will be others

there were others

what say Audre Lorde to Margaret Garner of power?

the difference between poetry or rhetoric

is a choice between lesser evils

whether killing your children is killing yourself

whether you kill yourself or your children

a final word singing from a grave

shifted by the missing

maddened by the hold

power is in the wave that moves

the way change is god

so is

spirit

or soul sees through

or like love

the more you control

the more it controls you

the difference between poetry and rhetoric

is Dareen Tatour

because a poem is not a knife or gun or bomb

yet a poem can so enrage a nation to imprison a poet

who attempts to balance the scales

agitates

a people power

to do

change

when a foot is on your neck

it does not matter how you get it off

what words you say

what weapons you use

knife or pen

so long as you do

is survival

and it becomes less and less

important what someone thinks about

how you resist

unless of course

they are willing to take the foot off your neck

too