The Social Poet: Recent Episodes

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A Song for Many Movements

by Audre Lorde

Nobody wants to die on the way

and caught between ghosts of whiteness

and the real water

none of us wanted to leave

our bones

on the way to salvation

three planets to the left

a century of light years ago

our spices are separate and particular

but our skins sing in complimentary keys

at a quarter to eight mean time

we were telling the same stories

over and over and over.

Broken down gods survive

in the crevasses and mudpots

of every beleaguered city

where it is obvious

there are too many bodies

to cart to the ovens

or gallows

and our uses have become

more important than our silence

after the fall

too many empty cases

of blood to bury or burn

there will be no body left

to listen

and our labor

has become more important

than our silence

Our labor has become

more important

than our silence.

—Audre Lorde

read by samm binns

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My People

by Langston Hughes

Dream-singers,

Story-tellers,

Dancers,

Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—

My People.

Dish-washers,

Elevator-boys,

Ladies' maids,

Crap-shooters,

Cooks,

Waiters,

Jazzers,

Nurses of babies,

Loaders of ships,

Porters,

Hairdressers,

Comedians in vaudeville

And band-men in circuses—

Dream-singers all,

Story-tellers all.

Dancers—

God! What dancers!

Singers—

God! What singers!

Singers and dancers,

Dancers and laughers.

Laughers?

Yes, laughers . . . laughers . . . laughers—

Loud-mouthed laughers in the hands of Fate.

—Langston Hughes

read by samm binns