Random - Sonia Sanchez's Powerful Poetry

[downtoearth]

For Sweet Honey in the Rock
By Sonia Sanchez


I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield til I die.

I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield til I die.

i had come into the city carrying life in my eyes
amid rumors of death,
calling out to everyone who would listen
it is time to move us all into another century
time for freedom and racial and sexual justice
time for women and children and men time for hands unbound
i had come into the city wearing peaceful breasts
and the spaces between us smiled
i had come into the city carrying life in my eyes.
i had come into the city carrying life in my eyes.

And they followed us in their cars with their computers
and their tongues crawled with caterpillars
and they bumped us off the road turned over our cars,
and they bombed our buildings killed our babies,
and they shot our doctors maintaining our bodies,
and their courts changed into confessionals
but we kept on organizing we kept on teaching believing
loving doing what was holy moving to a higher ground
even though our hands were full of slaughtered teeth
but we held out our eyes delirious with grace.
but we held out our eyes delirious with grace.

I'm gonna treat everybody right
I'm gonna treat everybody right
I'm gonna treat everybody right til I die.

I'm gonna treat everybody right
I'm gonna treat everybody right
I'm gonna treat everybody right til I die.

come. i say come, you sitting still in domestic bacteria
come. i say come, you standing still in double-breasted mornings
come. i say come, and return to the fight.
this fight for the earth
this fight for our children
this fight for our life
we need your hurricane voices
we need your sacred hands

i say, come, sister, brother to the battlefield
come into the rain forests
come into the hood
come into the barrio
come into the schools
come into the abortion clinics
come into the prisons
come and caress our spines

i say come, wrap your feet around justice
i say come, wrap your tongues around truth
i say come, wrap your hands with deeds and prayer
you brown ones
you yellow ones
you black ones
you gay ones
you white ones
you lesbian ones

Comecomecomecomecome to this battlefield
called life, called life, called life. . . .

I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield til I die.

I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield
I'm gonna stay on the battlefield til I die.

(Sonia Sanchez from Shake loose my skin)

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I haven't read or listened to her since I was in feminist lit classes in college, but I caught the documentary, "Bad Sonia Sanchez" and was reminded of how she gives voice to so many relevant issues.

[downtoearth]

Here's another that I remembered and looked up:

10 commandments for liberation
-Sonia Sanchez

1 • thou shalt clean up thine own messes. no servants whether paid (cleaning ladies) or indentured (wives).
2 • thou shalt not use other people. as tom hayden used james rector to advertise people’s park, as marxists use workers to overthrow the ruling class, as i just used tom hayden for demonstration purposes.
3 • thou shalt not foul. the air, with motor vehicles, the water, with detergents, the earth, with chemicals and pesticides.
4 • thou halt not deny any person’s humanity. blacks are not niggers, vietnamese are not gooks, women are not chicks, cops are not pigs.
5 • thou shalt not endanger other people for an idea.
6 • thou shalt not be ashamed. we are all perverts. we all have pasts we could spend our whole lives denying.
7 • thou shalt revel in what you really are: don’t change your looks, don’t stop talking, go ahead and be.
8 • listen to your body: it will let you know whether or not you are content.
9 • living things shall be allowed to breathe and grow.
10 • write your own commandments. i am only a person like you. “burn this & memorize yourself.”