Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Power

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
― Madeleine Albright

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless 

means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ” 
― Paulo Freire

The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. 

But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. 

It never did and it never will.” 
― Frederick Douglass

EXCLUSIVE by GOLDIE TAYLOR: Newsome Speaks
For The First Time After Courageous Act of Civil Disobedience:  

"We discussed it and decided to remove the flag immediately, both as an act of civil disobedience and as a demonstration of the power people have when we work together."

-Bree Newsome

Midweek Motif  ~ Power

Power, power: Who's got the power?  

Dictionary.com has 20 definitions of "power"--and that's just as a noun!  You may use any of them.  But I challenge you to write a poem that demonstrates "the power people have when we work together."

Alternatively, describe your fantasy secret power.

source

The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times,

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once

The attraction of a country in romance!

When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself

A prime Enchantress—to assist the work

Which then was going forward in her name!

. . . . 

Read the rest Here at the Poetry Foundation.

The Meaning of the Shovel

BY MARTÍN ESPADA

—Barrio René Cisneros 

Managua, Nicaragua, June-July 1982

This was the dictator’s land

before the revolution.

Now the dictator is exiled to necropolis,

his army brooding in camps on the border,

and the congregation of the landless

stipples the earth with a thousand shacks,

every weatherbeaten carpenter

planting a fistful of nails.

Here I dig latrines. I dig because last week

I saw a funeral in the streets of Managua,

the coffin swaddled in a red and black flag,

hoisted by a procession so silent

that even their feet seemed

to leave no sound on the gravel.

He was eighteen, with the border patrol,

when a sharpshooter from the dictator’s army

took aim at the back of his head.

. . . .

Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

                  (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ UNITY)