Revolutionary Poetry

I have always liked poetry that was somewhat of a call to arms or for chang. My favourite revolutionary poem is The Internationale:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

Eugene Pottier

Anyone here have any personal favourites? Just thought it would be nice to share some poems of similar theme, see if there are any none of us, or at least I, have never read.

By the way, please no one post Beasts of England. :D

Thanks for sharing

I like 'Good Morning Revolution' by Langston Hughes..I didn't get it anywhere online though..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by durga

I like 'Good Morning Revolution' by Langston Hughes..I didn't get it anywhere online though..

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I also very much enjoyed Hughes' Good Morning Revolution. Sadly, I think all of the works inside that collection never published during the poet's lifetime, due to political and racial suppression. Do you have any favorite poems from that book?

I have always thought that this poem by Percy Shelley was pretty radical in its intent: it wasn't published until after Shelley and King George the third were both dead. NOTE: I copied this from this website, but the title given to it is wrong, it's "England in 1819" not "English in 1819"! Should I contact the webmaster??

Sonnet: England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;
A Senate, -Time's worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Hey, neat thread.

I would propose any number of poems by Paul Eluard - November 1936, Liberty, or this touching eulogy titled 'Gabriel Peri':

A man has died who had no other shield
Than his arms open wide to life
A man has died who had no other road
Than the road where rifles are hated
A man has died who battles still
Against death against oblivion

For all the things he wanted
We wanted too
We want them to-day
Happiness to be the light
Within the heart within the eyes
And justice on earth

There are words that help us to live
And they are plain words
The word warmth the word trust
Love justice and the word freedom
The word child and the word kindness
The names of certain flowers and certain fruits
The word courage and the word discover
The word brother and the word comrade
The name of certain lands and villages
The names of women and friends
Now let us add the name of Peri
Peri has died for all that gives us life
Let's call him friend his chest is bullet-torn
But thanks to him we know each other better
Let's call each other friend his hope lives on.


A lot of poems by Audre Lorde would qualify as well. Stations, Diaspora, A Question of Climate, Vietnam Addenda - you might say her entire body of work is tinged with protest. Hard to choose, but one of the best of her more overtly protest works is a moving and provocative poem called 'The Day They Eulogized Mahalia.'

Edna St. Vincent Millay has some great ones like Concientious Objector. I also came across a neat anthology titled: A Chorus for Peace: A Global Anthology of Poetry by Women edited by Arnold, Ballif-Spanvill & Tracy.

Man Of People
Friend Of Lenin
My Dear Leader
Comrade Stalin

very nice poem!

very nice poem!

Yeah...:rolleyes: Perhaps we can find a nice ballade to Hitler to go along with it. Something that stresses what a good vegetarian he was, how he loved animals...

A telling poem. I got moved.

howl- alen ginsberg

uncreativename: i love that name, made me laugh, thank you

I like 'The Blacksmith' by Arthur Rimbaud. Can't find it online though.

THE LAST LETTER
The fight is hard and pitiless
The fight is epic, as they say.
I fell. Another takes my place -
Why single out a name?
After the firing squad - the worms.
Thus does the single logic go.
But in the storm we'll be with you,
My people, for we loved you so.

23 July 1942
(Translated by P. Tempest - 1954)

This is one of the best bulgarian revolutionary poets - Nikola Vapcarov. He wrote this ,hours before his execution. He was killed because he was a socialist !

A Youth

I do not know why I was born into this world,
I do not ask why I shall die.
When I was born the delicate May morn unfurled
its flowery freshness to the eye.

I greeted youthful Spring, I greeted vernal youth
and opened eager eyes to see
how life would come to me, beautiful and smooth,
amid a joyous rhapsody.

But no, I wasn't hailed by Spring with merry sounds
and showers of fragrant petals,
instead, a villain met me with a pack of hounds
to put my hands and feet in fetters.

Through clouds of fiendish greed and wicked spite,
a sinister shadow crept near,
a gold-armoured monster reared his height
dripping with blood and human tears.

In the falling gloom loomed faces pale and lea,
I heard laments in plaintive strains
and threats to repay for pain and vileness mean,
I also heard the clatter of chains.

I recognized my brothers who were kept enslaved
by the ungodly god of gold,
I saw the spirit of man: abased, depraved
and crucified a thousandfold.

I cried out in iron words and wrathful indignation:
May this be the dire day of doom!
The day of ruin and of new creation!
May fires blaze in this icy gloom!

May this, our earth, begin a fiery feast!
May the thunder roll and glow!
The slaves will unite to fight the monstrous beast,
and hurricanes of souls will blow!

I'll raise the banner of brotherhood unfurled,
and I will keep it flying high,
and then I'll know why I've come into the world,
I'll also know for what to die.

Another bulgarian socialist - Hristo Smirnenski

OK last one :)

Sharing the Spoils

We are brothers in spirit, you and I

Cherishing the same ideals,

And I believe there's nothing in this world

We'll have to regret, you and I.



Posterity will judge -

Did we good or did we evil,

But for now - hand in hand -

Let's move forward, our steps more sure!



Suffering and poverty in foreign land

Were our life companions,

But we shared them like brothers

And we'll share them again, we two...



We'll share choruses of rebuke, you and I

And suffer the mockery of fools -

We'll suffer - but we'll not groan

Beneath human torment of any kind.



And we'll not bow our heads

To passions and profane idols:

Our two mournful lyres

Have already told what's in our hearts.



So forward now, with spirit and ideals

To the final sharing of the spoils:

To fulfill our sacred pledge -

Toward death brother, let's go toward death!

Hristo Botev ,one of the greatest revolutionaries of Bulgaria, who participated in the fight and died for the freedom of my country !!!

It's a long one, but a great one....

The Mask of Anarchy
Written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester.

by Percy Bysshe Shelley



As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way—
He had a mask like Castlereagh—
Very smooth he looked, yet grim ;
Seven blood-hounds followed him :

All were fat ; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown ;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.

Last came Anarchy : he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood ;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown ;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone ;
On his brow this mark I saw—
‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And with a mighty troop around
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

O’er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down ;
Till they came to London town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For from pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
‘Thou art God, and Law, and King.

‘We have waited weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’

Lawyers and priests a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed ;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering—‘Thou art Law and God.’—

Then all cried with one accord,
‘Thou art King, and God, and Lord ;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!’

And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his ;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said :
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air :

‘My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day ;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

‘He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me—
Misery, oh, Misery!’

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose.
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale :

Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky.

It grew—a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper’s scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning’s, lay ;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.

With step as soft as wind it passed
O’er the heads of men—so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked,—but all was empty air.

As flowers beneath May’s footstep waken,
As stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where’er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked—and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien :

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth ;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt—and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother’s throe

Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood,—
As if her heart cried out aloud :

‘Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another ;

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.

‘What is Freedom?—ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well—
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

‘’Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,

‘So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

‘’Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,—
They are dying whilst I speak.

‘’Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye ;

‘’Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e’er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

‘Paper coin—that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something from the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

‘’Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

‘And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
’Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew
Ride over your wives and you—
Blood is on the grass like dew.

‘Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood—and wrong for wrong—
Do not thus when ye are strong.

‘Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest ;
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.

‘Horses, oxen, have a home,
When from daily toil they come ;
Household dogs, when the wind roars,
Find a home within warm doors.’

‘Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed ;
All things have a home but one—
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none !

‘This is Slavery—savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do—
But such ills they never knew.

‘What art thou, Freedom ? O ! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand—tyrants would flee
Like a dream’s imagery :

‘Thou are not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

‘For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

‘Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude—
No—in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

‘To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

‘Thou art Justice—ne’er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England—thou
Shield’st alike both high and low.

‘Thou art Wisdom—Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

‘Thou art Peace—never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

‘What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood ?
It availed, Oh, Liberty.
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

‘Thou art Love—the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,

‘Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud—whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

‘Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

‘Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou—let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

‘Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

‘Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

‘From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast ;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others’ misery or their own,

‘From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold—

‘From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares—

‘Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around

‘Those prison halls of wealth and fashion.
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale—

‘Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold—

‘Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free—

‘Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

‘Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

‘Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses’ heels.

‘Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

‘Let the horsemen’s scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

‘And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

‘Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,

‘The old laws of England—they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day ;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo—Liberty !

‘On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

‘And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, —
What they like, that let them do.

‘With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.’

‘Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

‘Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand—
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

‘And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

‘And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular ;
A volcano heard afar.

‘And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain.
Heard again—again—again—

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’


Edit: Shelley wrote this after the Army had murdered innocent people who were holding a political meeting at St Peter's Fields in Manchester. It became known as "The Peterloo Massacre."

The United Fruit Co. by Pablo Neruda

When the trumpet sounded, it was

all prepared on the earth,

and Jehovah parceled out the earth

to Coca-Cola, Inc., Anaconda,

Ford Motors, and other entities:

The Fruit Company, Inc.

reserved for itself the most succulent,

the central coast of my own land,

the delicate waist of America.

It rechristened its territories

as the “Banana Republics”

and over the sleeping dead,

over the restless heroes

who brought about the greatness,

the liberty and the flags,

it established the comic opera:

abolished the independencies,

presented crowns of Caesar,

unsheathed envy, attracted

the dictatorship of the flies,

Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,

Carias flies, Martinez flies,

Ubico flies, damp flies

of modest blood and marmalade,

drunken flies who zoom

over the ordinary graves,

circus flies, wise flies

well trained in tyranny.

Among the bloodthirsty flies

the Fruit Company lands its ships,

taking off the coffee and the fruit;

the treasure of our submerged

territories flows as though

on plates into the ships.

Meanwhile Indians are falling

into the sugared chasms

of the harbors, wrapped

for burial in the mist of the dawn:

a body rolls, a thing

that has no name, a fallen cipher,

a cluster of dead fruit

thrown down on the dump.

—translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly

The Interrogation of the Good

Step forward: we hear
That you are a good man.

You cannot be bought, but the lightning
Which strikes the house, also
Cannot be bought.
You hold to what you said.
But what did you say?
You are honest, you say your opinion.
Which opinion?
You are brave.
Against whom?
You are wise.
For whom?
You do not consider your personal advantages.
Whose advantages do you consider then?
You are a good friend.
Are you also a good friend of the good people?

Hear us then: we know.
You are our enemy. This is why we shall
Now put you in front of a wall. But in consideration
of your merits and good qualities
We shall put you in front of a good wall and shoot you
With a good bullet from a good gun and bury you
With a good shovel in the good earth.

- Bertolt Brecht

THE STALIN EPIGRAM

Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.

But whenever there’s a snatch of talk
it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer,

the ten thick worms his fingers,
his words like measure of weight,

the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip,
the glitter of his boot-rims.

Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.

One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he alone goes boom.

He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes,
One for the groin, one the forehead, temple, eye.

He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.

- Osip Mandelstam

For which the poet was arrested and sent to Siberia, where he died.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UncreativeName

I have always liked poetry that was somewhat of a call to arms or for chang. My favourite revolutionary poem is The Internationale:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

Eugene Pottier

Anyone here have any personal favourites? Just thought it would be nice to share some poems of similar theme, see if there are any none of us, or at least I, have never read.

By the way, please no one post Beasts of England. :D

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This poem is matchless, and all I like about this is it is really revolutionary and appeals to us, to break the chain of servility and urges one and all to go against tyrants, and they will not have war on anything but on tyrants.

Of course this is really moving.

There is corruption, and misuse, embezzlement or misappropriation of public wealth everywhere. Exploitation of the workforce is rampant, and the few rich few dominated the rest servile masses of people.

Once they get united, not force in the world can subdue them in point of fact.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nikola

A Youth

I do not know why I was born into this world,
I do not ask why I shall die.
When I was born the delicate May morn unfurled
its flowery freshness to the eye.

I greeted youthful Spring, I greeted vernal youth
and opened eager eyes to see
how life would come to me, beautiful and smooth,
amid a joyous rhapsody.

But no, I wasn't hailed by Spring with merry sounds
and showers of fragrant petals,
instead, a villain met me with a pack of hounds
to put my hands and feet in fetters.

Through clouds of fiendish greed and wicked spite,
a sinister shadow crept near,
a gold-armoured monster reared his height
dripping with blood and human tears.

In the falling gloom loomed faces pale and lea,
I heard laments in plaintive strains
and threats to repay for pain and vileness mean,
I also heard the clatter of chains.

I recognized my brothers who were kept enslaved
by the ungodly god of gold,
I saw the spirit of man: abased, depraved
and crucified a thousandfold.

I cried out in iron words and wrathful indignation:
May this be the dire day of doom!
The day of ruin and of new creation!
May fires blaze in this icy gloom!

May this, our earth, begin a fiery feast!
May the thunder roll and glow!
The slaves will unite to fight the monstrous beast,
and hurricanes of souls will blow!

I'll raise the banner of brotherhood unfurled,
and I will keep it flying high,
and then I'll know why I've come into the world,
I'll also know for what to die.

Another bulgarian socialist - Hristo Smirnenski

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This is a wonderfully written poem and I like it beyond words in point of fact.
This is exactly happening all around us and of course there are suffers, and I have seen injustices, there is no rule of law, and most organizations despite the fact that there are slogans and motto and inside exploitations reign.

This poem touched me deeply.

The Unified Heart

Through the sacred heart of eternity
life burns with love.

It is there in that endless ocean
where compassion is born

From this piercing empathy
forgiveness flows.

Its deep sapphire current
opens us to a new life of joy.

You can forget your fears in the raw ecstasy
and swim through waves of passion.

They are the source of dreams
and the essence underlying every simple thing.

In this unity of spirit
we must live to love one another
without letting our despair prevail.

Only the light of love can teach us
to overcome brokenness.

Then we can offer life a cup
of nourishing water from the
pure wake of our discovery.

As people drink from our glistening springs
we finally arrive at the shores
of untainted visions.

And the dark hollow of shattered hearts
is healed at last.

by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

by Ray Durem

I know I'm not sufficiently obscure
to please the critics -- nor devious enough.
Imagery escapes me.
I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.
Blood is blood and murder's murder.
What's a lavender word for lynch?
Come, you pale poets, wan, refined and dreamy:
here is a black woman working out her guts
in a white man's kitchen
for little money and no glory.
How should I tell that story?
There is a black boy, blacker still from death,
face down in the cold Korean mud.
Come on with your effervescent jive
explain to him why he ain't alive.
Reword our specific discontent
into some plaintive melody,
a little whine, a little whimper,
not too much -- and no rebellion!
God, no! Rebellion's much too corny.
You deal with finer feelings,
very subtle -- an autumn leaf
hanging from a tree -- I see a body!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fragger

by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

---

You won't believe how influential this poem has been to me, ever since I read it a couple of months ago...

Here's something else...

Canadians



With arrows on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs,
With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes in the roofs,
Low of crest and dull of coat, wan and wild of eye,
Through our English village the Canadians go by.

Shying at a passing cart, swerving from a car,
Tossing up an anxious head to flaunt a snowy star,
Racking at a Yankee gait, reaching at the rein,
Twenty raw Canadians are tasting life again!

Hollow-necked and hollow-flanked, lean of rib and hip,
Strained and sick and weary with the wallow of the ship,
Glad to smell the turf again, hear the robin's call,
Tread again the country road they lost at Montreal!

Fate may bring the dule and woe; better steeds than they
Sleep beside the English guns a hundred leagues away;
But till war hath need of them, lightly lie their reins,
Softly fall the feet of them along the English lanes.


Will H. Ogilvie

He appears in the room of a CEO
To show him the side of life he just didn't know
He awakes from a slumber in a startling fashion
The spirit can already see his lack of compassion
"WHAT ARE YOU, WHY HAVE YOU GRACED WHERE I LAY?!"
I am but the truth to correct your frivolous ways,
He takes the man from his bed with a flash of light
And when he agaped his eyes it was no longer night
In fact it was lighter than he'd ever seen before
His confusion only grew as he looked to the floor
A nappy headed child, on the ground he cried
The spirit then explained that his parents just died
They were in Darfur, now the man could assume
He had heard about this slaughter but he was just too consumed
He went to touch the boy, condolence far overdue,
But the spirit stopped him saying he would soon die too,

This spirit showed this man the hopelessness he was sheltered from
He took him across the world then he gave him a gun,
He said I chose you because of your incredible greed,
You have no family and you fulfill no other human's needs,
I've shown you the youth that will surely die tonight,
They'll be slaughtered mercilessly without putting up a fight
But I'll pose a choice, their life or yours,
Put the trigger to your head and fall to the floor,
Or you can let them all die and you'll never hear of it again,
This is simply a test of the humaneness of men,
He looked at the spirit and his face met the barrel
He wonder what had brought about this unexpected peril
But he pulled the trigger and all went dark
He fell back on the floor and the room went stark

He then awoke on his bed with a gun and a blank
Then he saw a note nailed upon a wooden plank,
Had you failed my test, had these youths all fell
I surely would have shown you an eternity of Hell,
How could I kill a man with such a change of heart?
I'm the savior of humanity and you were just the start,

-Mychael Whitney

A Poetic Genius throws down his right hand,
He speaks with fluency in his political demand,
Look at the chaos, embrace this coercive commotion,
Can't turn on CNN without seeing coffins closin'
Time to take a step back from America's nomenclature,
We've been betrayed by our own Individualist nature,
Liberal is progression, Conservative is what's established,
Judicial system is a joke and welfare is ravished,
If the house is not sound and the workers unskilled,
Don't let the structure fall, time to rebuild

-Mychael Whitney

The Palace
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rudyard Kipling
When I was a King and a Mason-a master proven and skilled-
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion-there was no wit in the plan-
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran-
Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles ; burned it, slacked it and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart,
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart.
As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

When I was King and a Mason-in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness-They whispered and called me aside.
They said-"The end is forbidden." They said-"Thy use is fulfilled,
"And thy Palace shall stand as that other’s-the spoil of a King who shall build. "

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves and my sheers.
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber-only I carved on the stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

Oh, Cliff!
Sometimes it must be difficult not to feel as if
You really are a cliff!
When fascists keep trying to push you over it!
Are they the lemmings,
or are you Cliff?
Or ARE you, Cliff?

I just want to ask you that...does revolutionary poetry change the pepole's thought really?in my opinion there is a lot more revolutionary poetry out there which has never read or heard by the common man....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Durr-e-Sana

I just want to ask you that...does revolutionary poetry change the pepole's thought really?in my opinion there is a lot more revolutionary poetry out there which has never read or heard by the common man....

---

But it's heard by some.