- You talk to me about your austerity measures
- The need to copyright my past, present and future
- To relieve your financial crisis pressures
- I have to tighten my belt and work hard
- For somehow, I have to save the banking system
- So it can save me and my daily, hard work pleasures
- I am told that the financial architecture is designed
- So that abundance overflows
- from rich to poor,
- strong to powerless,
- man to woman,
- But all I can see in your architecture ... is bad plumbing
- Clogged pipes everywhere
- Congested with your investments
- And my assortment of hard-earned debts
- But you better watch it, for you really can’t beat me
- I’m used to tying your free trade with my free labour
- Your market economy with my care economics
- Your fiscal policy with the welfare of my tenderness...
- But not for you, for those I love...
- And in my love lies my revolution
- So don’t get too comfortable
- Because I am a revolutionary woman
- Did you know of the kind of world that I desire?
- My fickle warrior heart, and my eyes that shine like fire?
- My dancing step and my strong working hands?
- That knead our freedom together without tire
- My deep wild laughter
- At the colourful dreams to which I aspire?
- Don’t let my thunderous silence fool you
- For I shall never honour your economic ceasefire
- Don’t get too comfortable
- I’m a revolutionary woman
- I am all too aware that you need me
- Can you survive without my loving free labour?
- Without the royalty of my generous nature?
- Can your empires last one second if I decide to with-hold
- The abundance of my one dollar?
- What if all of us decide to do so?
- What happens to your profits
- If my womb decides to hibernate
- No more babies for this world
- And no more consumers for this market
- What if I ... decide again to Occupy?
- A new market, a new system, a new justice
- Never forget
- Your power comes from my acquiescence
- To my legion of beloved friends, sisters and mothers
- ‘The street is ours!’...once said an old ancient mama sage
- Its true you know, all it takes nowadays, is one facebook event page
- Let us then see you cower ... under the surge of this woman power
- So don’t get too comfortable
- I’m a revolutionary woman
- Untamed minds and boundless dreams
- Ablaze with all possibilities
- Equality justice and solidarity
- Connecting our joint bloodstreams
- I pluck the stars and scatter them around us
- Its an old protection ritual for the adventurous
- Be prepared...
- For I know the smell of revolution when its a brewin’
- Don’t get too comfortable...
- ‘Cause in front of me lies, a terrifying bunch, of revolutionary women.
This poem was originally published in Development 55, (September 2012).
Read other articles in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.
