You who are decreed to be invisible,

Expiring dutifully in gutters,

Keeping us clean without being seen,

Making no claim to human status—

How you rose like tsunami, drowning

City after sinful city in a rage of

Awakening that left duty and shame

Behind—unburdened of the shackles

Framed by those who neither do duty,

Nor know shame.

 

Let not now this rising be a moment’s

Passion but a rage not to be deflected

From dismantling the Sodom and

Gomorrah of our time, and sinking

The pharaoh’s legions several fathoms deep.

Only when you make untouchable

The perfidies taught by the priests

And exploited by the moneylenders will the

Republic become a new Church that

Embraces without demur or discrimination

Sheep of all hues and definition,

And seal their equality in common graves.

 

And let those who make loud to stand

By you now in this magnificent rising

Know that any dissembling heretofore

Will bring their sustenance to an end.

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