Inspiration for "Words" courtesy of Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Oda a la matèria fosca
Passaven una pel·lícula IMAX
que anava sobre la Matèria Fosca
i les protestes de Les Vides Negres
Importen i per tu era el mateix son
en algun lloc a un milió d’anys
que descobria alguna cosa com
que aquest moment podria haver passat,
ser fins i tot matèria d’interès,
que adormida al bressol eres un Déu
a la màquina, mentre que el poema
que el teu pare llavors t’havia escrit
era una puta arma de collons.
Dark Matter Ode
There was the IMAX movie about Dark
Matter and the protests about how Black
Lives matter, but then for you the same sleep
And then a million years from now somewhere
Discovering that something like this one
Moment could have happened, could have mattered,
That you asleep in your crib were a god
In the machine and that poem your father
Wrote you was a fucking living weapon.
- Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Words.
What are words?
Are words just sounds coming
out of our mouths,
barreling through our neurons,
fired like a shot
ringing through the air?
People say that
words are just words;
words have no power,
that they aren’t like
sticks & stones –
they’ll never hurt you.
Sure, they’re right –
words are not like
sticks & stones;
they don’t deserve to be
haphazardly hurled
through the air.
Words have meaning,
and what’s more,
they have power,
stronger than any
stone –
I hold this truth
to be self-evident;
that words once built
this country.
Our founding fathers
nailed letters together,
as concrete as
brick and mortar
for a nation that is now
so hell-bent on
tearing itself apart.
Words,
which used to create
unity amongst communities
are now used to
pit brother against brother;
every news story a
calculated collection of
phrases meant to
ignite a fight to distract
the masses from what
is actually destroying us.
Generations of mothers
have seen their sons die
because our leaders
disagreed over some
arbitrary philosophy
now don’t tell me that
words don’t have power!
Power.
A word we’ve all heard,
a word we’ve been told
we will never have well -
Just like sticks & stones,
we can use our words
to break the bones
of everything that
has been designed to
keep us quiet.
We don’t have to flow
with the status quo –
don’t have to accept the
narrative force-fed to us
by those that only
seek to keep us silent.
We can refuse to accept
the current state of
the world for
what it is
and choose to shape
it into what it
could become,
and that all starts
with our words –
Every time someone
speaks up against
injustice they are committing
an act of revolution –
When we demand that
our words be heard
we are shaking up the core
structures of society,
stripping away the tired
narrative we no longer believe
and replacing it
with truth.
Words.
The thing
malicious men fear more
than any stick
or any stone –
The thing that can
cause change much more
radical than any
broken bone -
The thing that those
who benefit from
your silence fear you will
one day learn how to use
because they know –
That poem flowing through your
veins is a living fucking weapon.