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Happy Tuesday to All and Welcome to Tuesday Poetics! Lisa here as your pub host, offerer of liquid refreshment, tasty snacks from the magic cupboard, and provider of today’s offering to the muse.

Before we get into the prompt, a reminder that Björn is hosting LIVE poetry reading, listening, and communing on this coming Saturday, August 16, 10 a.m. NY time. Please make it if you can. It is always a joy to put faces to poems and listen to poets read what they’ve written. And oh, the joy it brings to share an hour of camaraderie with other pubsters. Link will be posted on Thursday’s Open Link Night post.

If you asked me, it was not my freedom I was worried about,
I was just afraid of losing my conscience. 
Or losing my compassion for humanity,
losing the freedom to be critical — those are frightening. 
— Ai Weiwei, from _Zodiac:  A Graphic Memoir_

Today’s prompt may be a little more challenging than others. It was sparked by two different books I’m reading. _Not My Type_ by E. Jean Carroll, is about her being the plaintiff in a rape trial where the current US POTUS is the defendant (although the rape happened back in 1996) that is by turns uproariously humorous and gut-wrenchingly triggering for anyone who has been, or has had a loved one, sexually assaulted. It’s a strange genre-bending combination, but it works similarly to how gallows humor is used between people who work in often grim occupations.

The other, _Zodiac_, by Ai Weiwei, internationally known Chinese political artist, uses animal symbology to punctuate an autobiography that has been shaped by China’s Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong and continues to be shaped by China’s current leader, Chairman Xi Jinping, who has led since 2012.

What is power? Going with the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5^th edition:

1) The ability or capacity to act or do something effectively.

2) A specific capacity, faculty, or aptitude.

3) Physical strength or force exerted or capable of being exerted: synonym: strength.

If you follow the above link, it will take you to a vastly expanded array of power’s defining aspects, but for the purposes of the prompt, let’s stick with these three.

In both books, the use of power and the abuse of power are expertly articulated. You might even say both authors use their own power to empower others through sharing their experiences and the actions they took because of their traumas. Maybe it is why abusers burn and ban books and imprison writers?

Audre Lorde

The first poem I encountered while looking for examples of political poems (and aren’t all poems political when it comes right down to it?) was one by Audre Lorde. Beware, it is graphic and disturbing, but is infused with transformative power in its plea.

Power
By Audre Lorde
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”

Now we have come to a place where you may choose to put your proverbial pen to paper and let the muse speak. Before writing anything, I would ask you to give yourself five minutes to meditate on power in all of its forms. You’ve seen in this post how it can be used for good or ill. Your challenge today is to use one or more of the definitions of power that have been given and write a poem in any format or length you choose.

New to dVerse? Here’s how to join in:
• Write a poem in response to the challenge.
• Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr. Linky below and remember to check the little box to      accept the use/privacy policy.
• You will find links to other poets and more will join so please do check back later in order to read their poems.
• Read and comment on other poets’ work– we all come here to have our poems read.

prompt is open until Thursday at 3 pm NY time