Audre Lorde- Power

Audre Lorde considered herself to be a black lesbian feminist mother poet. Fueled by racism, sexism, and oppression, Lourde's poetry tackles these issues with combination of rage and honesty, speaking to the consciousness of marginalized communities. Power, written in 1978, deals with the issues of racism and sexism head on. Unabated and honest, the poem contains thoughts, emotions, and actual events reflecting on the collective consciousness of the black community. The poem is beautifully raw and contains intense images. Power also speaks to the cyclical nature of racism and the violence, which becomes a direct result. Lorde's once stated,” I feel have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and to share not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good, but the pain, the intense, often unmitigating pain." Power illustrates Lorde's statement, and is a wonderful example of her warrior poetry.

Power

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being
ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds and a dead child draggging his shattered black face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thristing for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

The policeman who shot down a 10 year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and
there are tapes to prove that. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
"I didn't notice the size or nothing else only the color" and
there are tapes to prove that too.

Today that 37 year old white man with 13 years of police forcing
has been set free
by 11 white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one black woman who said
"The convinced me" meaning
they had dragged her 4'10 black womans frame
over the hot coals of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
"Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are."