“Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

“Under the Knife” by Krista Franklin

available here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/148280/from-under-the-knife

“Poem about my rights” by June Jordan

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can’t
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can’t do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
myself
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it’s about walking out at night
or whether it’s about the love that I feel or
whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

“And Again, Today” by Meg Day

My march begins in the morning.
I tighten my fade & my tie & I wait
until I’m fifty feet past the frat
to put in my hearing aids. My neighbor
starts marching before me — her hands
buried in the bundle of her youngest–
& waves from the window to Paula
who never waves back as she rolls
off the bus on her march toward home
after a graveyard at Lyndon’s so crowded
with whistles & unrelenting hands
she feels she’s become a one-woman parade.
Every microaggression, another mile; every
holey paycheck, sexist slight, lousy curb cut,
pink tax, or worker’s fight. Are you prude,
bitch, dyke, uptight with miles of boys
will be boys to go before you sleep?
Who’s got keys between their knuckles
every night? Who puts their march to bed
only to find it turns back on the light?
I, too, was probably meant for gentler
things than hate: I’ve been searching
for a long time to find another way
of being a girl that isn’t manmade.
If you’ve been waiting for an invitation
it’s arrived. O, second chances–
second shifts, a second fist to the face
of the sky & look: we’re a movement
in a clock, pushing our own weight
against another’s in the hopes of turning
things around. Pound the pavement
if your privilege is a body that can
(but god how knowing the taste
of pavement can keep you from it).
March on bended knee or with bowed
head, march with wallet open or from
your own small bed. Put your hound dog
howl to the phones, put your queer
shoulder to the wheel — re-sound
your own resistance & make it run
aground on the front lawn of any House
that won’t help you get free. March
like your sisters are dying. March like
your planet is through. March like your own
life depends on it & march knowing
that marching can’t save you. March
so they know we’ll still get up
& march tomorrow morning, too.

“everything i’ve called women” by Nate Marshall

if i said baby you might think a certain thing but nah.
that’s only maybe what i mean, perhaps i’ll say ma

& your mind says Cam’ron, women creeping up
but i’m a changed man, & that’s not game ma.

it’s practice in high school & THOT isn’t out yet.
we’re classic Chicago & bustdowns bloom in our mouths. my Ma

spits Too $hort & the line i catch the first time
is btch btch b*tch make me rich but Ma

puts me on punishment when i whisper Ludacris
& tells me sex shouldn’t hurt. i say nothing & Ma

lets it go until a few years later when i get becky
or brain or top or dome by a white girl & Ma

tells me everything i’ve risked for this escapade.
i can’t fix my mouth to say but Ma

what i got i didn’t ask for. shorty just kinda went
& i was supposed to moan street things like hey ma

you look beautiful. & after that i moan it all
& give women a rash of nicknames there’s ma

(who calls me pa) & hollywood & princess & pop star
& doctor & lady & knee socks & ma

what’s your name i just put where we met in my phone
don’t be mad i remember our whole convo ma

& bae & baby & honey & shorty & poison & tenderoni
& when i’m lonely hey stranger. how you been ma?

& sometimes i’ve called & gotten dial tone songs
or been told Nate do you remember my name? or is that why you say ma?

“Institutionalized” by Kendrick Lamar (song)

[Intro: Kendrick Lamar]
What money got to do with it
When I don’t know the full definition of a rap image?
I’m trapped inside the ghetto and I ain’t proud to admit it
Institutionalized, I keep runnin’ back for a visit
Hol’ up
Get it back
I said I’m trapped inside the ghetto and I ain’t proud to admit it
Institutionalized, I could still kill me a nigga, so what?

[Interlude: Anna Wise & Bilal]
If I was the president
I’d pay my mama’s rent
Free my homies and them
Bulletproof my Chevy doors
Lay in the White House and get high, Lord
Whoever thought?
Master take the chains off me

[Part II]
[Intro: Taz Arnold]
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom
Zoom, zoom, zoom
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom
Zoom, zoom, zoom
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom
Zoom, zoom, zoom
Zoom, zoom, zoom, shit

[Verse 1: Kendrick Lamar]
Life to me like a box of chocolate
Quid pro quo, somethin’ for somethin’, that’s the obvious
Oh shit, flow’s so sick, don’t you swallow it
Bitin’ my style, you’re salmonella poison positive
I can just alleviate the rap industry politics
Milk the game up, never lactose intolerant
The last remainder of real shit, you know the obvious
Me scholarship? No, streets put me through colleges
Be all you can be, true, but the problem is
Dream only a dream if work don’t follow it
Remind me of the homies that used to know me, now follow this
I’ll tell you my hypothesis, I’m probably just way too loyal
K Dizzle will do it for you, my niggas think I’m a god
Truthfully all of ’em spoiled, usually you’re never charged
But somethin’ came over you once I took you to them fuckin’ BET Awards
You lookin’ at artists like the harvests
So many Rollies around you and you want all of them
Somebody told me you thinkin’ ’bout snatchin’ jewelry
I should’ve listened when my grandmama said to me

[Chorus: Bilal]
Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass nigga
Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass
Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass nigga
Oh now, slow down

[Bridge: Snoop Dogg]
And once upon a time in a city so divine
Called West Side Compton, there stood a little nigga
He was five foot something, God bless the kid
Took his homie to the show and this is what they said

[Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar]
Fuck am I ‘posed to do when I’m lookin’ at walkin’ licks?
The constant big money talk ’bout the mansion and foreign whips
The private jets and passports, presidential glass floor
Gold bottles, gold models, givin’ up the ass for
Instagram flicks, suckin’ dick, fuck is this?
One more sucker wavin’ with a flashy wrist
My defense mechanism tell me to get him, quickly because he got it
It’s a recession, then why the fuck he at King of Diamonds?
No more livin’ poor, meet my .44
When I see ’em, put the per diem on the floor
Now Kendrick, know they’re your co-workers
But it’s gon’ take a lot for this pistol go cold turkey
Now I can watch his watch on the TV and be okay
But see I’m on the clock once that watch landin’ in LA
Remember steal from the rich and givin’ it back to the poor?
Well, that’s me at these awards
I guess my grandmama was warnin’ a boy
She said

[Chorus: Bilal]
Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass nigga
Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass, boy
Shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass nigga
Oh now, slow down

[Outro: Snoop Dogg]
And once upon a time in a city so divine
Called West Side Compton, there stood a little nigga
He was five foot something, dazed and confused
Talented but still under the neighborhood ruse
You can take your boy out the hood but you can’t take the hood out the homie
Took his show money, stashed it in the mozey wozey
Hollywood’s nervous
Fuck you, goodnight, thank you much for your service

“Mo Money” by J. Cole (song)

Mo Money, yeah
Mo Money, Blow Money, Show Money
Party Money, Side Ho Money, Dope Money
New Clothes money from shit that I wrote money
So much money I don’t know who stole from me
Hard to keep track I’m used to having no money
Still broke compared to niggas with old money
I mean the type of niggas that laugh at Hov money
Billionaires with Petroleum and coal money
Probably kill themselves if they had Cole money
Talk shit and I’mma see you like you owe money
I’m wrapping up the album, fourth quarter I’m so money
I’m overseas looking for trees to grow money
Peter Popoff off robbing people for hope money
Prostitutes collecting that let me stroke money
Put up a couple dollars for the liquor store money
Used to dread the strip club cause I couldn’t throw money
Now the strippers give a nigga the throat for no money
How mama gonna teach you how to save your money
When she barely on the boat got stay afloat money
Blacks always broke cause we don’t know money
Spend it before we get it and could never hold money
No wallets, nah, nigga we’d rather fold money
Money control niggas, white man control money
Laughing like “yeah yeah my nigga get your money”

“Grand Slam” by Malcolm London

BreakBeat Poets p. 285

Huron St and Lavergne Ave
Intersect like a baseball diamond
Southeast corner
1st base
A police camera sits
Like an announcer’s booth.
A throne flashing blue
Overseeing everything here
As if it is foul play
Southwest corner
2nd base
A boarded up building
Serving more coke
To more patrons
Than a World Series game
Fast balls black mother into aging
Guitars
Strung out on street corners
Their own sons standing on the
Pitcher’s Mound with no hope of being
Dugout
Northwest corner
3rd basemen
Uniformed in hoodies
Pelle jackets and timberland boots,
Are corked bats
Ready to strike out
At anyone who stares
Too long, walks too boldly
Or throws the wrong curve
Of fingers.
Dreadlocks beneath fitted caps
On swivel for any woman swinging hips and
Batting an eye
Do anything and everything illegal
Just to score food on their plates
Yankee mascots taunt
Anyone in a brown skin jersey
This small negro league
Crackerjacked by an empire
Controlled by white umpires.
Northeast corner
Since the late sixties my
Grandmother
Has made her living room window a
Bleacher
Watching america’s favorite past
Time
Bases loaded
With her offspring
Who have never made it to the
Majors
Or studied one
Most of us have stopped short
Of coming home
Safe

“How to get over (for niggas)” by t’ai freedom ford

BreakBeat Poets p. 89

“Defense” by Jamila Woods
BreakBreat Poets p. 260

“For What It Is Worth” by Buffalo Springfield (song)

[Verse 1]
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

[Chorus]
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

[Verse 2]
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

[Chorus]
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

[Verse 3]
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

[Chorus]
It’s s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

[Verse 4]
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

[Chorus]
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

“America’s Pastime” by Jason Carney

BreakBeat Poets p. 52

“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron (song)

[Intro]
Good evening and welcome, my name is Gil Scott-Heron
My accomplices are, first, from left to right:
Eddie Knowles, a drummer for the Denise salute dance group, a drummer for December dances and a percussionist for a group called “Black & Blues”;
The brother to my immediate left is Charlie Saunders, of December dance group and a former drummer for Loretta Parker;
David Barnes, a singer of “Black & Blues”, will be heard later on in the evening.
We’d like to do a poem for you, called “The revolution will not be televised”
Primarily, because it won’t be

[Verse]
You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip
Skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruption
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell
General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
Hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and
will not star Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
Thinner, because The revolution will not be televised, Brother
There will be no pictures of you and Willie Mays
Pushing that cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not predict the winner at 8:32or the count from 29 districts
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers in the instant replay
There will be no pictures of young being
Run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still life of
Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a red, black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the right occasion

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and
Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant
and Women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock News
and no pictures of hairy armed women Liberationists and
Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key
nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash
Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a whitetornado, white lightning, or white people
You will not have to worry about a germ on your Bedroom
a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath
The revolution WILL put you in the driver’s seat

The revolution will not be televised
WILL not be televised, WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live

“Amerikkkan Idol” by Joey Bada$$

[Intro]
Yeah, uh, uh
Turn the music up in the headphones
Watch me get gone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

[Verse 1]
Amerikkkan Idol, one hand on my bible, one hand on my rifle
I’m aimin’ at my rival, sure to leave him dead on arrival
They say it’s all about survival, never lackin’ the vitals
So I came to kill the game and still gave it revival
I’m coming for the title, man it’s best you throw in the towel
Last nigga who tried to vio, now facin’ a trial
I’ma be here for a while, gettin’ richie like Lionel
Now she all up in denial ’cause she gettin’ the dial
While I’m only gettin’ better, so she back on my D now
I wanna be down but she denounced
I got my shot, then made her, bounce
Now you tryna rebound, I’m livin’ in the now
While the future figure me out
Told mommy pick a place, yo, and we out
‘Cause Bed Stuy a little unsafe for me now
That’s why I keep the .40 loaded with no safety around
Never thought I’d have to hold it, I’m just holdin’ it down
Protect my neck and my crown, patrol throughout the town
And they judgin’ just ’cause my skin color is brown
And for that, they wanna leave me dead in the ground
And have the nerve to blame it all on my background
Sorry white Amerikkka, but I’m about to black out
Got a message for the world and I won’t back out
So turn the kid raps loud, I’m about to spazz out
Watch out, another nigga runnin’ in the White House
But I won’t stop ’til this whole shit painted in all black
And we on top, ’cause my people been paining before crack
Media’s got this whole thing tainted, that’s all fact
Feedin’ you lies like this whole thing wasn’t built on our backs
Assimilate our history then made it a mystery
Now they all inherit the bittersweet victory
Look at what they did to me, can I get a witness please?
Justice never served, reparations never sent to me
It’s clear who the enemy, they declare war on the end of me
Assassinate my character, buryin’ my entity
But they can’t kill my energy, so when it’s said and done
They forever gon’ remember me
The fuck is you tellin’ me?
Fuck is you tellin’ me?
Way more than a celebrity
And fuck white supremacy, huh

[Chorus]
I’m out for dead presidents to represent me
Dead fuckin’ presidents to represent me
I’m out for dead presidents to represent me
Because I’ve never known a live one that represent me
Well, dead presidents to represent me
I’m out for dead presidents to represent me
Dead fuckin’ presidents to represent me
Because I’ve never known a live one that represent me

[Refrain]
It’s no contest, can’t fuck with the congress
Me and my niggas goin’ off like bomb threats
It’s no contest, can’t fuck with the congress
Me and my niggas goin’ off like bomb threats
Me and my niggas goin’ off like bomb threats
Me and my niggas goin’ off like bomb threats
Me and my niggas goin’ off like bomb threats
Me and my niggas goin’ off

[Verse 2]
This that Bada$$-assination
Topic of conversation, my proclamation to the nation and its congregation
Been makin’ observations like it’s my occupation
Debatin’ speculation like it ain’t just second nature
Thou shall love thy neighbor, don’t let that nigga hate you
‘Cause he know where you lay up, when it’s karma, time to pay up
Climb the ladder of success, I’m steady on my way though
Devisin’ plans while you sleepin’ I’m just tryna stay woke

[Bridge]
You leave me no choice, I’m about to bring noise
Got to fill this void, I got to be the voice
Yeah yeah yeah
I said leave me no choice, about to bring noise
Got to fill this void, I got to be the voice

[Verse 3]
What the government is doin’ amongst our people is downright evil
Disturbin’, but not surprisin’, that’s for certain
With all of the conflict of propaganda, I believe they are simply tryna slander
Start a Civil War within the USA amongst black and white and those alike
They are simply pushin’ us to our limit so that we can all get together and get with it
They want us to rebel, so that it makes easier for them to kill us and put us in jails
Alton Sterlings are happenin’ every day in this country and around the world
The scary part, boys and girls
Is most of these stories don’t make it to the news and reach mass consciousness
It is for sure time that we as a people stand up for acknowledgement
And accomplishment of what we call human rights
It is time to rebel, better yet, raise hell
I just want everyone to be cautious about how they go about it
Because this is all part of the government’s plan and what they been plottin’
They’re literally beggin’ for this to happen, so they can kill us off
Usin’ uprisin’ and rebellion as the excuse in a timely fashion
The cancerous foods, the chemical warfare, economic sufferin’ is not workin’ fast enough
There are many steps ahead of us and manifestin’ the future that they want
We have to work together, not only rattlin’ them on a physical plane
But to outsmart them on an intellectual mental level the same
As black men, I think our gangs need to do a better job at protectin’ us
The people, our communities and not assistin’ in destroyin’ them brutally
It’s time to even the score
‘Cause who do we call when the police break the law?
We are so quick to pick up a gun and kill one another
But not quick enough to pick it up and protect each other
The code words to killin’ a black man by police is, “He’s got a gun”
Damned if he do, damned if he don’t, damned if he runs
Or what about them? Them murderers got it
We need solutions, you better start plottin’ now
It’s always been clear that they don’t value our lives
My people been sufferin’ way too long
And I’m tired of singin’ the same old song
People actin’ like this shit isn’t happenin’, it’s downright wrong
Justice won’t be served by a hashtag, and that’s the very reason I ask that
What are we to do? We’re scattered around
With no clue of this ugly truth
All we know is who they ridiculed and who gets minisculed
Time to wake the fuck up and do our own research
And not form opinions based on just what we’ve heard
Ameri-K-K-K-a is force feedin’ you lies down your throats with a silver spoon
And eventually, we’ll all be doomed
Real, real, real soon

Honorable Mentions:
“If I Were A Boy” by Beyonce (song)
“My niece’s hip hop” by E’mon McGee
“PLUTO SHITS ON THE UNIVERSE” by Fatimah Asghar