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ASL Slam A-Z handshape story—this poem was homegrown in Boston during the coffee shop Deaf Poetry Jams—then brought to new life in New York City at the poetry clubs and bars with the @aslslam #ASLSlam #ASLPoetry #DeafPoetry #DeafPoets #DeafSpace #AlphabetPoetry #AlphabetCity (at Nuyorican Poets Cafe) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo6vlU0nWng/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=lndl04tg3d7g

#aslslam #aslpoetry #deafpoetry #deafpoets #deafspace #alphabetpoetry #alphabetcity

Tinkerbell💫

I followed Peter Pan

straight up to Neverland

I sat with Captain Hook

and read a book

I hid from him and Smee

with Lost Boys in a tree

I drank their poison juice

To call a truce

But love and magic vibes kept me alive

So lesson learned:

You won’t get burned

If you keep the faith

For Heaven’s sake

#clapifyoubelieveinfairies #idobelieveinfairies #idoido

✨👏🏻✨👏🏻✨👏🏻✨

I Pledge Allegiance

I pledge allegiance 🇺🇸

I watch the President's speeches🔊

I'm baptized by America 🗽

In all of her beaches🌎

The salty water that bleaches 🌊

My facial expressions😶

And reaches💣

So far in every direction🌍🌏

#slampoetry #readbetweenthelines🌐

Indigo🌀

Sometimes it feels like

I take up too much space

And I shouldn’t take up more

But my spirit soars

Through every door

Through the twists and turns

As disalignment burns

Along the paths and peaks

Toward the truth I seek

Within the lunar glow

Beyond the solar flow

I just gotta know

The source of astral birth

And my place on Earth

New Millenium💥✨

Y2K, Disarray, Bush is back

and now Manhattan under attack—

Ground Zero, The Afghan Taliban

and American Hero

Anthrax, The Patriot Act

OxyContin, Pfizer and crack

Katrina, Angelina, Indonesia

Race and social amnesia

Pederasty, Michael Jackson

And the fall of affirmative action

MySpace, Facebook, Red Sox Nation

And the Wall Street crooks

Pluto, Guantanamo,

An Obama Election and Tahrir, Cairo

Leonardo in the jungle, Urban hunger

And Dan Brown’s anti fungal

Gaza, Benghazi, WikiLeaks

And the Party of Tea

BlackOps, distillery

Susan Rice and Hilary

Batman, Newtown

The Constitution and the military crown

#WeDidntStartTheFire

1990-2000🔥

Communism, Gorbachev Gulf War, George is gone Race brutality, Quayle Got no intellectuality Apartheid, Hill and Billy Mandela, Motown Philly

Great Flood, Somalia New York blood OJ, Cobain Oklahoma in pain Flight 800 and Kaczynski Susan’s up in space-ski

Charles and Di say goodbye Did they know she would die? Britain’s children sadly cry Seinfeld, Space Jam Fuji’s got the better cam Tupac’s dead, Ellen’s gay What else do I have to say?

Clinton’s busted, perjury Ewing’s got an injury Mars Attacks, Grease is back There is trouble in Iraq Frankie’s dead, we all cry Death is falling from the sky Teenage angst, Homicide All those students said goodbye

#WeDidntStartTheFire

I Apologize✋

I apologize for being deaf

For all I am and all the rest.

Please sir, please ma’am

Forgive my social debt

Cause I apologize.

I apologize for being loud

For sounding crude

For seeming rude

By just ignoring you

Oh, I apologize.

I apologize that I can’t read

All of your auditory words

And that I need

Such a very special verse

But you say that's just greed

And so I apologize.

I apologize that you don’t sign

And you just don’t

Have the time

That you shocked our heads

So we could learn

Or get burned

Yeah, I apologize.

I apologize and curse my ears

For being broke

For causing tears

Because I know

It’s what you fear

Why not apologize?

So I apologize and shun my peers

For being freaks

For being weird

For having needs

That fund careers

Yeah, I apologize.

So I apologize and tip my hat

Because you’re so literate

Smooth and fast

Wouldn’t we agree

That’s where it’s at?

Yeah, drop the mic

And fuck that.

🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

And I apologize.

Creation💫

You can't look at the sun☀

and question existence⭐

You can't look at the moon🌙

and keep your distance✨

Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust💫

citoyennevay

GLITTER ΒΙΑ ΑΝΑΡΧΙΑ massqueeraid

Do you have the right to feel? #graffiti #thessaloniki

transformreality

💗💖💞

Prejudice

I have prejudice Against hearing people Against men Against women Against deaf people

I have prejudice Against power Against privilege Against poverty

I have prejudice Against hate Against abuse Against violence

I have prejudice Against myself Against my nation Against the world Against creation

Enlightenment

We all feel thunder and would all feel lightning We’ve all got wonder and excitement- We all go under and need enlightenment

The Human Race

I haven’t really found my place- but I embody the revolutionary nature of the human race-

I’m not here to be a yin to the social yang- I’m here to resonate the music that the people sang-

I don’t stand at evolutionary pace- but I’ll get up and dance with the revolutionary human race-

Change, Radical Activism and Social Justice

Today, we celebrate the 27th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 2nd Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Both of these men symbolize change, progress and the United States of America. During President Obama’s speech- he brought us back to the words of our founding fathers:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, which among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Obama asserted that these truths have not been executed for all people. The statement itself excludes women, and we all know that our country allowed slavery and excluded people of color from these unalienable rights. Many of us know that people with disabilities, gay people and transgender have also been excluded and severely oppressed. Many of us know that systemic poverty prevents a large percent of the national and global population from ever realizing their rights. Although Obama speaks liberally on a platform of Federal power- Martin Luther King Jr., spoke radically from the trenches of the oppressed.

Martin Luther King, Jr. called out for us to strike down the system of racism, to challenge the injustices of capitalism and to demand truth and peace during a time of war. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a liberal politician, he was a radical activist. His existence, his actions and his impact demand that we acknowledge and respect the radical activists and movements that challenge injustice today.

Martin was not a perfect man. He continued to promote sexist values and patriarchal culture. This reminds us that no hero or an idol alone will deliver us to justice. It reminds us that leadership requires accountability. It reminds us that accountability is defined recognizing the rights of every person. It reminds us that recognizing the rights of every person is done by an equal community of every person. Barack Obama reminded us today:

…that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

Before he died, Martin was in the process of organizing a resistance to economic injustice. Called “The Poor People’s Campaign”, Martin considered it the second part of the civil rights movement. In his manifesto, the Crisis in Americas cities: An Analysis of Social Disorder and a Plan of Action of Poverty, Discrimination and Racism in Urban America, he called for “disciplined urban disruption” to peacefully resist these injustices. This movement sought to hold the government accountable and guarantee housing and income to every single citizen- an economic Bill of Rights.

Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. –Where Do We Go From Here, 1968

After he was killed, the resistance continued with the establishment of a 300-person tent city near the Capitol. This protest was endorsed by Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. - another martyr of the civil rights movement. After bad media coverage and failure to prompt a response from Congress, the protest was dispersed after six weeks.

Occupy Wall Street, more than 30 years later, established a tent city in privileged zones of power- exposing the economic and political elite to the faces and indignation of poverty and oppression. Occupy Wall Street was suppressed by the government, the corporate media and the silence of the average American. The media and the government framed the essence of these movements as violent, unsanitary and a threat to national security- coordinating a nationwide crackdown and eviction of all Occupy camps. The FBI monitored the Occupy movement as a terrorist threat, despite its non-violent principles and adherence to Martin Luther King’s prescription of “disciplined urban disruption”.

I have seen the front lines of these protests- rife with police intimidation, brutality and inter-protest infiltration. I have seen the disparities in the corporate media coverage with the realities of non-violent and loving assemblies. I have seen crowds of thousands chanting, marching and discussing- while the media and politicians remained silent. Much like the citizens of the civil rights movement- Occupy activists have been threatened, harassed, shamed and segregated from their peers and mainstream society. Just last week, internet activist Aaron Swartz was martyred after his disobedient efforts to promote accessibility of information.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture- Aaron Swartz Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, 2008

For us to honor these martyrs and follow Martin’s call to justice- we must dismantle the systems of racism/sexism/ableism, challenge the crimes of capitalism and transform a military society into a culture of peace. We must demand accountability for economic crimes, address the prison-industrial complex, refuse to accept the collateral damage of our foreign drone strikes and take a stand on social justice. We must respect the sisters, the brothers, the occupiers, the transformers and the angry militants who are taking a bold stand.

There is no justice in suppressing the radical drive toward righteous transformation. Martin was arrested for it, shamed for it and died for it- so that we might realize how to stand for it. Today, I call on my President Barack Obama and my fellow Americans to take a stand and respect the words of radical activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Stop arresting, shaming and blacklisting the social justice activists who speak up and disobey in peace; stop suppressing our public assemblies about these changes; stop expanding our military in the name of peace; stop dismissing the collateral damage of war. Stop the injustice. Take a stand and challenge the status quo. At the very least, respect and support those who do.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. -Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream, 1963

#martin luther king #obama #activism #radical #social justice #occupy #transformation #aaron swartz

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