Open Mic 1

(We are the poem

I am the poet and this is poetry)

I am the gift of heaven, upon earth

I am Eve a lonely night wading in still waters speaking forth her birth

I am born of three kings

crowning the planets with my hurt

I am the Queen

Eye am the Queen

I am all

knowing the caged bird

and the reason why it sings

I am freedom and I am the dream

"I too am America"

I am the song of every slave heard from below the decks of hatred during the Middle passage

I am the faces of defeat

and calloused hands

of slaves forced to pick cotton in the fields.

I am every underground route that Harriet Tubman led

(Can you hear what I said,

Can you hear what I said?)

I am every rib of every man

that had a woman to standby his side

hastening to freedom

from the bridges of Montgomery to the steps of Washington

I am Martin, Barack, Michelle and Coretta Scott.

I am every woman who declared her voice to be heard just as loud as any man

I am every pride and strand

of courage sewn in the will and determination of a woman

who refused to give up her seat on the bus.

I am every child thrusted

upon backs of Tutsi mother's

fleeing genocide in Rwanda

I am every single mother who has fought to feed the starving mouths of her precious baby boys and one darling daughter in the city of Philadelphia

I am the painstaking cry heard in the middle of the night reigning from behind the walls of China in 1979

I am

every

single

aborted

child

I am every soldier crawling through barbed wire

head bowed over his lifeless friend

hands bloody

soul tired

I am his beating heart

trying to reach forth

from television sets

I am his mourn for freedom.

I am his black eyes of regret

(Can you hear what I said,

can you hear what I said?!)

I am the young woman in Albania that stands every day around the corner of the embassy longing to be wrapped in jackets labeled with the word New York City wanting another life

I am the stifled young woman of Ukarine forced into the sex slave trade

never again to be called wives

I am two woman crying in thee Arab world suspended over another martyr’s casket

asking Allah, Why?!

I am the woman at the well longing to be held or loved for the very first time

and finding Jesus

I am every broken soul running a thousand miles in the wrong direction masked by the shadow of religion's steeple

I am the people

Eye am the People

I am the people

(And we are the poem

I am the poet and this is poetry)

- Lovve