what i want
from you can
you give? what
i give to
you do you
want? hey? hey?

From Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums.  Copyright © 1998 by Sonia Sanchez. Used with the permission of Beacon Press.

i count the morning
stars the air so sweet i turn
riverdark with sound.

From Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums. Copyright © 1998 by Sonia Sanchez. Used with the permission of Beacon Press.

the hours fly quick on wings of clipped winds
like nonsense blown from mouths of hot air—
people—including my own—form syllables, suds,
words shot through pursed lips like greased sleaze
& bloom inside all these rooms dominated by television’s
babble sluicing idiot images invented in modern test tubes—
clones—blinking, slathering all over controlled airwaves
of an up-for-sale world, blinking a paucity of spirit,
so dance you leering ventriloquists, marionettes,
you greedy counterfeits, dance, dance, dance

Copyright © 2006 by Quincy Troupe. From The Architecture of Language (Coffee House Press, 2006). Reprinted from Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database