I want to be Nikki Giovanni bad

I want to be Nikki Giovanni BAD,

Ego Trippin’ to my own magnificence

Kidnapped By a Poem and taken

to all the places I want to go

And Maya Angelou GOOD. She knows

Why the Caged Bird Sings and shares the

secret with us.

Still I Rise.

SMOOTH like Sonia Sanchez, who is so

deep that I fall into her poetry and

meet myself coming out the other end and

LIVING like Langston, holding fast to

Dreams so that they will not die.

He, too, Sings America.

*******

When I can’t catch the lyric to that song

That’s when I want to get my Gwen Ifill on and have

REAL and serious debates around

real and serious topics that

really matter.

With

real outcomes and

real changes.

I want to be Audre Lorde RELEVANT,

like the book of her poetry that is third from the right

on the second shelf

of the 3rd bookcase

that I have in my room.

I want to be as UNCOMPROMISING as Alice,

not the one running after a rabbit,

no

not Alice Wonder but Alice Walker

crafting words that tell it exactly as it is

while still possessing the Secret of Joy within the Temple of My Familiar.

*******

I want to be James

Earl Jones,

Baldwin,

Weldon Johnson

FIERCE,

intoning change-making theater with a

magnificent voice to

Go Tell It on the Mountain,

about the need to

Lift every Voice and Sing.

And sing and sing

Inspired by them all

We too can raise our own voices

So bad we are good

So smooth we are living dreams

So real we are relevant

So uncompromising We. Are. Fierce.

Weaving words that make a DIFFERENCE

And making a difference with our words

As I raise my voice and take a stand,

feet wide-spread, hands on hips,

like someone who deserves to take up space on this planet,

I realize that I want to be

I want to be

I want to be … Me