Iona Singleton

Activism is Poetic, Iona Singleton, May 2020.

Activism is Poetic

It has meaning beyond its aesthetic

It’s raw beauty energetic

A message that’s magnetic

Not ordered, or alphabetic

It’s unapologetic

Leading the soul by its rhetoric

No need to be aggressive

It’s followers are empathetic

Seeing everything as connected

A voice that’s authentic

Pure and prophetic

Watch as it wreaks more havoc than a pandemic…

Some words that rolled off my fingertips

Leaving an implied meaning with the ellipses

while watching the protests from the window of the tour bus

in Santiago, December 2019

Rifling through my notebook I revisit these words again. Pandemic

Did I know what weight that word would carry now?

And activism

It gives me hope in altruism

Today we fight to eradicate systemic racism.

A spoken poet

leads us into protest

using words like Leonard cohen

stopping the humdrum of traffic

making way like Moses

their war cry flowing

“no more lives will be stolen”

the pace picking up

with each moment

but how to keep the protests focused

And who decides what issues are chosen?

Has the world media really noticed

That this one feels so potent

Let’s hope it’s reflected in the voting

Politicians and policymakers take note, please.

When language catches me off guard,

I speak in rhyme sometimes

when my mind hasn’t grasped the meaning behind

an experience or event

but my heart knows to

twist my tongue and lips around the words

and out they tumble unrefined

nonsensical but alligned

For me, activism will always be poetic

Its legacy will spread like this pandemic.