Poetry Ahead: Joy Harjo, then me

Joy Harjo - A Poem to Get Rid of Fear

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So now I'm not afraid to follow Harjo with one of my own poems...haven't posted one here in a long time. Mostly because of that 'previously published' issue in case I want to submit somewhere. But I'm tired of not sharing my work here. Tired. 

This one is new, read it at the last Poetry at the Grounds, started out to be an Occupy poem and then shapeshifted a bit....

No Lipstick

I hear there will be no lipstick
come the revolution.
So we will stain our lips
with pomegranate juice

and know forgetting

forgetting how afraid we are of change
forgetting how afraid we are of loss

forgetting  our capacity for violence

We will high five ourselves and let everything go,
there’’ll be a river for all that stuff.

We will be wearing all that we own.

Come the revolution

cooking will be a communal rite,
eating together a sacrament.

No one will talk about what they let go

we will all be poised on the edge of each moment
reveling in what is

deeply understanding the nature of forgiveness

knowing
that the spiritual world
permeates everything in the physical

that every bird’s wing
has a shadow
that shifts through us

as they fly by

that all our beloved dead drift
through us like white smoke
on the deep sky of our souls


We will hear them with us always.
They will draw nearer.
We will co-create the universe with them.

We will know love at last.

Come the revolution

we will see there is something pure after all
at the beginning of everything

at the beginning of our truest selves.

                                      ---Zann Carter (2011)

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