Best Liberation Poems
WORLD WAR 11 THROUGH THE EYES OF MY MOM
POEM NO. 1 OF TRILOGY
World war 11 was nearing its end,
The Nazis losing ground
In Russia, been driven out of Moscow,
Everywhere snow bound,
Dying like flies because of the bitter cold,
No Food, no shelter, just attack after attack by
The Russians, the bold!
Meanwhile, the whole of Europe
Glued to their radio,
Listening to how the allies
Were pushing the enemy back,
The morale of the people was
Beginning to crack,
It was time, enough was enough,
War was no fun,
The Greek folk were done!
My mum and her friend next door
Would visit each other,
Warned so often by my grandfather
And her friend’s brother,
Beware, the march of the Nazi boot,
Their knock on your door,
No reason required , they would just shoot
Or else men dragged out to be shot,
Because a Nazi soldier was found dead
Revenge to the Nazi’s was sweet,
They had taken the Greeks peoples means
Their bread
For over four years,
The Greeks had shed many tears.
Leaving wives, daughters, sisters bereft to pine,
The Nazi’s war crimes were not ‘klein’!
No light
At night,
To show through their curtains,
So blankets hung up in fear
Of their lives
The Nazis fearless
Cared not who survives!
The sound of gunshots was an everyday thing,
For every Greek shot, the church bells would ring!
The Greek underground
Was profound,
Working with the French, they made victory sound.
The allies were advancing
And the Germans retreating,
Small pockets of them stayed behind,
They had to surrender, or die,
As the British troops marched through the streets
Liberating Greece, A child beats
On his drum,
His mom thankful the good guys have come!
So many cheers
The Greek peoples tears,
Had rained down for years.
Athens the capital of Greece was now free,
In the name of The Father,The son, and The Holy Spirit,
All made the sign of the cross, the Holy Three
The date October nineteen forty four
The fear of the Nazi boot at their door,
No more!
Frustrated by great expectations
~ lower them for Liberation
“You can’t make homes out of human beings.”
— Warsan Shire
To me, this quote speaks to the impossibility of relying on another person to be your permanent safe place or emotional foundation. Human beings are not structures we can inhabit, possess, or depend upon to make us whole; when we turn someone into our sense of home, love can become entangled with expectation, dependency and ownership.
This piece explores the dehumanising experience of being desired but never truly seen, of being looked at as something to consume, possess, take apart and discard.
Wishbone
He appraises me as though my bones
were fashioned for breaking,
two limbs diverging from a sacred centre,
his hunger already choosing
which half it intends to keep.
There is an unfeeling felony in such looking,
the way desire can undress a person
until even personhood becomes superfluous.
He makes an altar of my anatomy,
then calls appetite reverence.
He would tie me to his tongue
and still not know the aptitude of my name.
He mistook possession for intimacy,
lust for fractured divinity,
my body for some reliquary
he might prise apart for providence.
His eyes of penitence arrived too late.
Beneath fractured halos,
what hollow absolution resurrects
a woman reduced to portions:
mouth, waist, thighs,
the convenient mathematics of flesh?
He had already tested where I was weakest,
where the bone would give,
how much wanting could be mistaken
for tenderness before it became cruelty.
That was the anatomy of absence:
to be entirely present
inside a body someone else
had already erased me from.
I was no omen for his wanting,
no little bone upon which
he might wager a wish.
Yet he still broke me.
But he did not know what wishbones remember:
that they once belonged to wings,
that fracture is a hinge, not an ending,
that some things split
without surrendering themselves.
He expected two obedient halves,
a clean division,
something small enough to possess.
Instead, the fracture disclosed
what his hunger had failed to comprehend:
I had never belonged to the bone.
And if time turns,
will scars stain the sky?
Let them.
The larger fragment in his fist
never meant he won.
It was only proof
that possession leaves evidence.
He had to break a thing that flew
to believe it was his.
Envision, if you will, a star-drenched night,
a hammock on the deck and a glass of wine.
Embrace the soothing image, clutch it tight
and know your fondest wishes mirror mine.
Serenity entwines with solitude,
creating in the blend, tranquility.
A masterpiece for two, an interlude,
a captured silence meant for you and me.
Beneath this still-unsullied picture,
framed by its celestial beauty, look at me
and see an artist's face, unmasked, untamed,
evolve before your eyes, to something free—
So, how could I, unfettered, now refuse,
my liberation by the perfect muse?
The Petty Posh-Wahzee - Liberation & Ostentation
The Not-So Distant Past:
The fallen fighters for freedom, are unable to turn in their graves,
their battered, fragmented bones, mixed with a handful of torn rags,
are all that remain, a mute reminder of their selfless valiant sacrifice.
They endured brutal Apartheid harassment, detentions without trial,
torture in the cells, and mental anguish when loved ones disappeared,
they left their homeland, to continue the struggle against racial bigotry,
while countless others fought the scourge of white-minority rule at home.
Nelson Mandela and many, many others, spent their lives imprisoned,
on islands of stone, and on islands of the cruellest torture, yet they stood,
never bowing, never scraping, they stood, firm for ideals for which they were prepared to die,
and many, many comrades did die, at the hands of the callous oppressor,
and many, many comrades perished in distant lands, torn from their homes,
while the struggle continued, for decades, soaked in blood, in tears, in pain.
The Present:
19 years have passed, since freedom was secured at the highest of prices,
delivering unto us, this present, a gift of emancipation from servitude,
a freedom to walk this land, head held high, no longer second-class citizens,
in the land of our ancestors, whose voices we hear and need to heed today.
I do not care much for fashion, Lewis-Fit-On and Sleeves unSt.-Moron,
yet the ostentation that I witness baffles even my unsophisticated palate,
our ancestors' plaintive whispers are being dismissed, left unheeded, as
we browse the aisles for more and more, always for more and yet more.
Asphyxiated by the excess of the Petty Posh-Wahzee, we find ourselves,
perched precariously on the edge, of a dissolution of all that is humane,
babies go hungry, wives are battered, our elders left in hospitals for hours,
I cringe as I scribble these words, perhaps too sanctimonious and preachy,
yet I know, deep in the marrow of my brittle bones, I know, I know, I know,
this tree of freedom planted by the nameless daughters and sons of Africa,
needs to be shielded, nurtured, protected from our very own baser impulses,
so that the precious tree of freedom, may bear the fruit that may feed us all,
for if not, then we are doomed, to tip over, and into the yawning abyss, we shall fall.
They say you should think happy thoughts
but tell me what’s the use
repression is depression, it’s self inflicted abuse
Take a minute before you dismiss this, walk a little in my shoes
If you refuse, the mind is the only thing that you’ll lose
So listen what would you do if you had demons growing inside you
would you let them linger, while they torture your very soul
or face them, destroy them, confrontation is how you console
let them fester and i promise they’ll find a way to control
To corrupt you, and change you, is their primary goal
Look into your brain and you’ll witness the blood stains
of your battered mind, don’t stress there’s still time
Heal those wounds with your head up high
Heal them by figuring which of your thoughts are lies
Liberate yourself from the notions you don’t truly believe
and a day will come where you’ll be happy just like me
"The Liberation"
When your home
is torn out from underneath you,
like a rug or a tablecloth,
nothing of value is left standing
on the surface, except silence.
life implodes for a while,
you’d think the vessel empty.
however, eventually,
what burns inside
is enough to fuel
an atomic missile;
you think better of that
and turn your efforts towards
other higher-level new worlds
and your escape mission.
a bid for life at all costs,
you take survival
and run with it,
igniting the benefits
of universal Love,
blasting off
from the nucleus
with the courageous
winged warriors
locked in, seated;
from the front
you turn the
ignition key,
squadron leading
The Liberation
platforms
like it's
some kind of baptism
by fire,
like it's
some kind of rebirth,
like it's
some kind of suicide mission
you smile, and
settle for,
Thanks Giving Season.
mission accomplished,
you've become ungrounded,
you're finally leaving
Earth
Women and children
first
(LadyLabyrinth/ 2022)
Hopes and prayers soar in aspiration
In this season of heightened anticipation
When diverse cultures in our great nation
Await their holidays with eager expectation
Channukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa -- in ideation
All Festivals of Light, their candles lit with jubilation
In awareness of their symbolic inspiration
Fervent flames proclaiming messages of liberation
Midst the darkness of December's nocturnal hibernation
And from its accomanying spiritual malaise and dislocation --
Blazing a path to renew mankind's powers of imagination
Rekindling our sense of wonder at God's purposeful Creation
when the glory of a
man
is turned into a
mystery
his pride becomes a
mockery
for ignorant of the
truth
is the cultivation
of wickedness
and arrogance the
father of
foolishness
his heart consumed by
grief
and his mind hunts
for a relief
but lost in belief
for his god fails
him
and nothing to be
held in high esteem
for his reward is
condemnation
caught in the web of
desperation
his effort can only
end him a
frustration
the sky blue turns
dark
the bad wind blows
away the good luck
an innocent man
drowns at sea
for his soul is
empty
his flesh perishes
and he dies in his
anguish
his body afflicted
by flies
for a greedy soul
is full of lies
the deeds of the
righteous is
perfection
and that of the
devil is destruction
for evil his
invention
when the righteous
perish, evil
flourish
he lives in the
heart of men
and their body his
den
The Woman Who Went Too Far
There was once upon a time
a woman
who went too far.
She was stopped
and fell down.
She was not the Humpty Dumpty type.
Slooooooooooowly
she gathered her pieces
and made her back straight again.
Despite million tons of weight
pulling her down,
finally
she managed to get up.
She stood up and shook her hair.
She walked here, she walked there,
Until she went so far again.
So far is too far!
Said the men who loved her.
So far is too far!
Said the men who did not want her.
So far is too far!
Said the women who could not understand her.
Let’s go too far!
Said the women who were not afraid.
The King is dead and Malcolm too;
Those who are left include me and you.
Now is the time brother, what shall we do?
The Black Power Stokley left behind
Is gone into decline; faded away—
No one remembers Kwame Toure.
Pass the White House today.
You know what they say:
“The more things change,
The more they stay the same way.
How strange.
We are back at the day of no;
Back to where they called our place.
They took the ‘yes’ out the day before;
Today we remain a struggling race.
Emerald time fades to onyx night
The yoking sun shines on the brave
Energizing ebony warriors of the fight;
Least we chose to die as a slave.
As strange as this all may seem,
Know these are not words of a dream.
The enlighten know what they mean;
Freedom remains to be redeemed.
To be or not to be is not the question.
Ours must remain total liberation—
Freedom awaits its full restoration;
Thirst of the children await its libation.
A Liberated Sonnet of Liberation
The heroes have been silenced. Gone.
The leaders are contained. Contented.
And the warriors are now married
To the earth; and we are divorced again
From justice—cast aside once more.
The fruits of the journey lay rotting
In abandoned dream sheds;
War is no longer a game children play
But a hypnotizing reality seeping away
Innocence choked on self-destruction.
Yet all is not lost. The sun comes again tomorrow.
We shall rise and clothe ourselves in tattered hope
And arm ourselves with the old weapons of faith.
Delayed justice is snow; and the devil is a lie.
As I sit and watch
Watch you denounce the obligatory violence
Announcing and pronouncing the fabricated freedom
Joyfully commemorating and celebrating your assassinated true leaders
The enemy killed not the leaders but the ideas
You buried not them but the ideologies intended to truly liberate you
6 feet deep under the ground,
Saying they shall multiply and long live!
Chanting slogans with no comprehension just for the rhythm and sound
Deep into the ground
Burying your true liberation from colonization
Being sold the false hope of FREEDOM.
As I sit and watch
Watch black man selling his kinsmen to the highest bidder
Manipulated by the enemy to think he is better and different
Better than the poor masses who sacrificed themselves to be his ladder up
You are no different black man
You are just a slave in a black tie
They bribe you with a cheque from your forefathers’ fortune and wealth
They use you to steal in your own pocket
Stealing your legacy to your enemy
Yes they are right ‘You are different’
The difference between us is your inanity.
As I sit and watch
I watch my brothers and sisters been turned to be educated slaves
Enslaved by a mere pen and paper
A piece of paper segregating us and determining our destiny
Desired so hard by many to own to serve the enemy
They chose very well the useless texts to colonize and brainwash you
They planned so well to systematically oppress you
They took the weaker with no vision to execute their plans
As I sit and watch
I watch them say “save that one in a cell we might use him later”
I watch them say “kill that one he is too stubborn, a true leader and he is a threat”
I watch them with white collars reading the scriptures that say ‘a slave must obey his master’ and shouting PEACE BE UNTO YOU!
I watch them on the other hand brutally killing, raping and stealing.
Wake up black man and liberate yourself
No one will
Not even your so trusted leaders
You are not yet uhuru and so is your Azania
They stole your land with a bullet and you shall get it with a bullet not negotiations and commissions
Free yourself
Decolonize your education
To truly liberate the coming generation
Preach not their gospel but Africanism and socialism
ALUTA CONTINUA!!!!
#I WRITE TO PROMOTE NO VIOLENCE BUT TO LIBERATE
For my Mother
We would nurture hands building pedestal.
What man nurtured women, matriarchal?
Procreation, Liberation, Choose one.
Some things we'll never fully understand.
Who made the moon as mirror for the sun?
The heart of men in darkness was outdone.
The blind man saw poison of jealousy.
Darkness and blinding light have set men free.
Love flowed like breath with fresh scent of iris.
The least shall be first, on love's endless list.
Pedestals and thrones of men were brought down.
We'll see beyond the blue if lost and found.
Mama once said, I must call on her God.
Silvery grey glistened like her quiet nod.
*(For my Mother on Mother's Day)
General Eisenhower was a man of foresight
General Eisenhower had photographs taken
because he knew that evil is eternal
because he knew that Satan is immortal
because he knew someday some would deny
that it ever happened....