Novena Carmel: if wine was a river and i was a duck i’d dive to the bottom and never come up but since wine ain’t no river and i ain’t no duck imma drink this wine til i’m fucked up now dig all you cats and kitties out there whipping and wailing and sucking up all that ole fine juice well imma put a lady on you she is the coolest the sweetest the poet-est and the worldliest and she from new york city and this gal her name is aja monet aja monet: the devil you know taxes the air we breathe privatises the water profits of homelessness strangles the land and injects hormones in animals rapes the people and rewards the rich charges you for being sick sends a bill to your loved ones with interest when you die laughs at us coughing up our lungs gulping water, lead dripping off our chins buys private ships to the moon dancing with your demons the selfish, individualistic part of you the one who rather not have a foot on your neck or who shows up to the rally after sipping sweet comfort at a corporate gig that pays you just enough to die a little slower tired and community fostering care how being black or woman or queer or trans or other or human or inhumane computer or code able bodied ten fingers, ten toes running or right or wrong how none ofitmatters when the earth is a hand written letter from the past a ghost sculpted in blood, city sweating bitter memories flooded by crawling maggots and swollen hurt how, how the sewers sing of old sidewalks and cool breezes are our fairytales we spoon feed our children in the heat and we were never ourselves, had we known who we are without greed a world decorated by betrayal if we had a sense of humour x 2 we’d be more radical more migrant than citizen we’d breathe the air clean and ration our resources gathering hugs and holds set to bloom and pebbles of rain reasoning with riverbeds rinsing in daylight ridding pipelines and fossil fuels we would melt all the guns x 2 (melt all the guns) the moist in the back of our knees the lick between knuckles mocking evil and all its ill designed destruction we would choose the scar we would bulldoze the walls and plant windows where widows weep beautiful green lakes hushed in our cradling arms we’d become the tiny brooklet kissing creeks we are, we are near a point of no return a wounded woman scorn temper sharp as a thousand shards aimed in one direction i am weary for weeping “me too” she whispers “me too” the earth said. Interlude the most important election is in the heart a campaign of soul a candidate measured by their courage in the midst of the enduring strength of love voting for the inner standing how we make a way through no way in a basement church or a high school auditorium a family living room these days these days insanity is the sanity stifled sobs, despair, distress, thrill p r a i s e the people x 2 praise the peoples power the poet laureates of the poor care warm anthems sawn from the keyholes of closed, shut doors the whistle of who and why the architect of self-determination if you gon’ vote x 2 vote with your spine a head held high vote x 6 with the way you love a gut singing soft city sleep dreaming of protest the ballot the ballot is not a bullet but it can be a border or a bridge you choose (she got make me vote) how you gon’ vote pour into each other how we mourn those we’ve lost how we all hold the grief vote x3 with childcare how you nurse the sick lending someone your heart pay fair wages x 2 thats the least you can do, is pay fair wages vote vote by listening resist the artificial division of our deaths held together by a common thread of concerned, self-determined, reliant respect the body is a ballroom of grief and despair we the life we the chosen we the freed migrant rebel workers we the word workers we the shoeless and standing tall we the houseless and housing parks we the teachers still students we the farmers in the field we the shamans being healed revolution revolution is not a spectator sport silence is a noise too somewhere somewhere there is an incorruptible spirit re-remembering a time when we voted with the thoughts in our minds it begins with you it begins with you loving you enough to me as i am you we are the country’s consciousness rising and we are only as powerful as our vote made in the flesh our voice our voice bravely raising up reverberating new visions