Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Martyrdom / Witness

You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become 

more powerful than you could possibly imagine. 

~Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope by George Lucas

"Glory" by Common, John Legend and Che "Rhymefest" Smith.

From the 2014 film Selma. 

Midweek Motif ~ 

Martyrdom / Witness

Here's a very surprising fact! It surprised me, anyway, and led to this prompt.  According to Wikipedia: 

In its original meaning, the word martyr, meaning witness, was used in the secular sphere as well as in the New Testament of the Bible.[1] The process of bearing witness was not intended to lead to the death of the witness . . . .

Your Challenge:  Perhaps you have witnessed or experienced witness that needs a poem? Write a new poem for this prompt, letting the tone of the poem reveal your positive or negative feelings about martyrdom and/or witness. 

From the Gallery of 20th Century Martyrs at Westminster Abbey—l. to r.Mother Elizabeth of Russia, Rev. Martin Luther King, Archbishop Oscar Romero and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Martyr

BY HERMAN MELVILLE

Indicative of the passion of the people
on the 15th of April, 1865

Good Friday was the day

    Of the prodigy and crime,

When they killed him in his pity,

    When they killed him in his prime

Of clemency and calm—

         When with yearning he was filled

         To redeem the evil-willed,

And, though conqueror, be kind;

    But they killed him in his kindness,

    In their madness and their blindness,

And they killed him from behind.

              There is sobbing of the strong,

                   And a pall upon the land;

              But the People in their weeping

                                    Bare the iron hand:

              Beware the People weeping

                   When they bare the iron hand.

. . . . (Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation.)

ICC Kenya Trials: Witness

BY SHAILJA PATEL

was it so I could

never say

across a courtroom

that man, the one

standing there

was it so you could

walk among us again

after

as if you had shed

the body that did

those things

was it because you could

not bear

my pupils so huge

they would have swallowed you

my whites like flayed kneecaps

when you pressed down

to singe them back

into my skull they were softer

than you expected

you had thought them

diamond hard

weapons turned on you

was it so you could

imagine a time

when you would be human

again among humans

that you had to leave

some of us

alive?

Source: Poetry (March 2014).

Used by Permission

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below 

and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week, Sumana's Midweek Motif will be A Flower Was Offered to Me. )

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