Viva Castro
Viva la revolution
Viva the people
Viva the killing of tyrants
Viva the guns of Santiago
Viva the exiled capitalists
Viva the educated masses
Viva the death of Apartheid
Viva homes for the homeless
Viva health care
Viva resisting empires
Viva never backing down
Viva always learning
Viva always improving
Viva learning from mistakes
Viva dialectics
Viva destiny
Viva the future
Viva the flame of life
Viva the hammer of justice
Viva the will of the exploited
Viva our comrades
Viva the titans living and dead
Viva Che
Viva Assata
Viva Fidel
Viva la revolution
Viva Cuba Libre

The words I speak are unpopular, unwanted and uninvited
Oh Lawd, pray I not be misunderstood
But then if I am, that too is okay
For I speak not in the vulgarity of this regime
This regiment armed with ******* extensions calling me a renegade
To insinuate that I am dangerous because my body speaks from a position of anarchy

As though anyone was what they looked like
But then again, I am dangerous, deliberate and afraid of nothing
Praise the Lorde, the Audrey Lorde!
**** what I look like!
I don’t care that I look like I was hit by a speed train at the bend
I don’t care that my hair sits on my head uncombed and unruly as though it owns me
Because then if I do I will let you **** me over again, did I say again?
But if you can’t figure me out here please accept my apology for not being obvious
Take from my hand words for your Language Acquisition Device
And devise for your ilk ways of seeing, new ways of seeing me
This is the end of normal, arm yourself
Here an extra pair of eyes
Now drop the pretense and straighten the frown on your face
To act like ‘****’ is too sensitive a word to your senseless sensibilities is hypocrisy
The problem is, I said it and I ain’t no Rick Ross or Lil’ Wayne or some other brother
Whose ‘****’ comes to you as an endorsement to objectify women
To call her everything: a *****, a ****, a ****, a *****
To call a woman everything, but her name
And when you call a woman by name you mean to shame her
Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Wangari Maathai, Martha Karua
Kingwa Kamencu, , Audrey Mbugua, Wambui Otieno-Mbugua, Sojourner Truth
And this is the truth, black women have not even began to be resentful
of the rise to power of black men but there is a problem
A certain school of thought crafted by Slave masters on the colony
Teaches Black men that for them to be strong black women must be weak
Fallacious reasoning! This here is a product of gross miseducation
And Black men have not even began to unravel their role in the empire

Their counter-revolutionary exertion of a “manhood” that tells women to step back
As though to break off from our colonial oppression, never meant the total involvement
of every man, woman, and child, every-*******-body
As though for us to get here didn’t take the breaking of a woman’s back


Women whose labour terms in developing political consciousness were cast in stone
A time ranging from I-can’t-see in the morning until I-can’t-see at night
O Lawd bless Malcolm X
So this is your to do list for every man
Every man who acknowledges 'Wangu wa Makeri' and Bi Mswafari
in the same sentence with no sense of irony
Every woman who joins in the patriarchal laughter of our television
making fun of the nameless woman in 'Budalangi' begging 'sirikal' (Government) to help
As though her pain wasn’t real and the state hadn’t ignored her, three floods later
Please do yourself a favor, stop laughing
and teach yourself something on capitalist oppression
Stop laughing at the propaganda being pushed around as the truth
About men having *** with cows and hens because it will not be marked in history
that in two thousand and thirteen Kenyan men became intimate
with their food, pets and *****
And stop wearing Christianity as a beautiful coat that covers  your hatred
Because I don’t care how many verses you have memorized to make your hatred effective
For you have a verse to pull out of your pile of cards to justify the way you treat women and gays and Muslims and atheists and people
You see the truth is if Jesus came back to the world, you are the type that would still **** him
Because Jesus was a rogue, a rebel, and a revolutionary who refused to conform to any laws
Your hatred, judgement and self-righteousness must disgust him
because you are the worst thing that ever happened to my poetry
Stop condemning women for abortion and teenage pregnancy
as though there weren’t rapists and ******* priests who still oppose the use of contraceptives
Stop passing down your hatred to your children and other people’s children in the name of Jesus
So look yourself in the mirror and imagine what would happen
Imagine what would happen if we were to be honest in this conversation
and for a minute tried to speak about love as though we invented it
Take off your prejudices as though they hang on your shirt and again,
again and again ask yourself  ‘Who am I?’
And when you take to the streets before you tweet jokes that humiliate real people
Please stop, instead, try to talk of the revolution of love
Like our mothers did, and their mothers before them
And when you raise your hand to hit a woman STOP!
She has been beaten before and your hand shouldn’t touch her the same way
Keep your hand mid air and in that breathe ******* thank a woman

The revolution will not be televised,
unless it is being used to vilify,
or is being politicized
by those political guys
trying to score votes.
Any fair press will be silenced or brutalized
along with other protesters.
The leadership will be euthanized,
or demonized unless they can be
subdued quietly.

If you are under the illusion
that you can fight back physically
you must be mentally silly.
The cops got equipment
left over from the military
cause the war machine
wants to sell our government
the newest toys.

If our government has any say
they will find a way to lock away
anyone who might inspire change.
If you don’t believe me
just look and read
about Assata Shakur,
or Angela Y. Davis.

If you know or love anyone
who is out there trying to save us,
from the congressional and big business,
power hungry alliance
you better pray that they keep their defiance
just low key enough to slip the notice
of Law enforcement, or POTUS,
cause this country isn’t for us
and does not provide justice.
It is just a business that is made
to break and degrade
while the working class is enslaved.

It started with a look
who am I to know were the eyes lead.
I walked life blind sided,
it was always me.
I needed too much but gave so little
isn't that how a **** life story issues.

you took me out the me out the darkness and showed me the light
Thought it was right when I had you by my side.
said "I'm to pale" and showed me the sun.
you showed me the beach as we walked hand in hand and left life trail.
the sun sets...looks like the suns red....
from a distance we can hold the sun with our own hands.

This light brought love and that's pain
you changed my weather but this heat brought rain.
I broke the rules of this dam game
Left my world and joined yours. such a pity shame
Took control of your mind but couldn't enter your heart
1 body 2 organs, life's knowledge you don't think
you just love and
Just run with it, run with
The faster you run the faster it beats....
while mine dies slow.
"your chasing love", go forth and find it so
I fall back... back to my world as you go.

Walked the beach onward reversely
Just one set of feet as I saw,
your steps, my steps and my steps got washed away.
is this how ****** feels once you get away
Death is on my mind synonymous with your name.
But I wont run like Assata I'll stay.
I'll stay and fight like Amaru
I've always been a Shakur.

In the darkness I recite these words
"we were not meant to be those feelings were just lips"
Now your face became a blur
your body heat became a shiver.
As I hope you'll find the love your searching for.

It started with a look. Who am I to tell were my eyes might lead is always been me. Nobody else. I'm back home.

(This poem is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have struggled across generations in pursuit of the timeless ideals of freedom, justice, and equality)

When they try to tell you that the act of protest is un-American,
Dig in your heels, square your shoulders, spit in their face, and remind them where you come from
You come from Samuel Adams, spilled tea and muskets over Massachusetts, people who believed a revolution could not be honest if it did believe in its own declarations,
From John Brown and Nat Turner, broken chains and dead masters, people who believed slavery could not be destroyed without taking up the gun,
From Sojourner Truth and Susan B Anthony, ballots cast in handcuffs, people who refused to back down until democracy lived up to its promises,
From Eugene Victor Debs, shut down railroads and prison sentences, people who would risk everything so that every worker had the right to a fair wage and a livable condition,
From Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood, general strikes and marching mill children, people who believed we could never be free unless we owned what we produced,
From Emma Goldman, anarchy and cries for liberty, people who believed that every institution which dominated the human spirit had to smashed by force,
From Malcolm X and Huey Newton, shotguns and free breakfasts, people who believed the government would not protect us so we must protect ourselves,
From Angela Davis and Assata Shakur, shootouts on the turnpike and crumbling prison walls, people who believed true emancipation was a struggle that would last forever,
From The Weather Underground and Students for a Democratic Society, midnight break ins and burning draft cards, people who believed the true enemy was not on foreign soil but in Washington
From Chief Seattle and Black Elk, wounded knee and fast receding tides, people who fought to carve their ancestors legacy out from the rubble of a stolen nation,
From Cesar Chavez and Robert Bullard, people who believed to save ourselves we must also save the Earth we live on,
From the Gay Liberation Front, police raids resisted and throwing bricks in dresses, people who fought like hell so that in the future people wouldn't have to fight like hell to love who they wished

Yours is but the next stage in evolution in a line centuries in the making,
You will carry that brilliant torch, and you will burn everything down with it
You will stand on the shoulders of giants climbing to a utopia that was promised,
They will try to break you down, they will try to **** your dream in its cradle,
But you will always have strength they do not,
History will remember you and them alike,
You as the hero, and them as the villain,
Remember this, keep this close to you,
For it will always be your greatest weapon