MARTIN LUTHER KING REMINDS US ALL TO NOT SLEEP THROUGH THE DAY. OR TO SLEEP THROUGH OUR LIVES. THE BLACK COMMUNITY HAS SO MUCH IN COMMON WITH THE LGBTQ, LATINO AND OTHER MINORITY COMMUNITIES. SO AT QUEER NEWS TONIGHT WE DECIDED TO HONOR MLK’S NATIONAL HOLIDAY WITH A POEM CALLED QUEER UTOPIA LIVES. PART OF A SERIES CREATED BY GCN LGBTQ NEWS. ASKING LGBTQ ARTISTS, ACTIVIST, MAKERS, THINKERS AND DREAMERS TO MAKE ART BASED ON THEIR RESPONSES TO THE BOLDEST OF IMAGININGS. POET OLLIE BELL AND NEAVE ALOUF DREAM IN QUEER UTOPIA LIVES. OLLIE IS A NON BINARY TRANS ACTIVIST AND POET AND THEY ARE FOUNDER OF TRANS AND INTERSEX PRIDE DUBLIN. NEAVE COLLABORATED IN IMAGING. SINCE MARTIN LUTHER KINGS’S “DREAM OF THE 60’S) WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THE STONEWAL RIOTS OF THE 60’S, GAY PRIDE OF THE 70’S & 80’S, MLK NATIONAL HOLIDAY OF THE 90’S, LATINO RIGHTS OF THE 2010’S AND NOW BLM OF 2020 & 2021. SO JOIN US IN CELEBRATION OF THE DREAM OF MARTIN LUTHER KING IN QUEER UTOPIA LIVES:
Queer Future
I open my eyes as hands drag me out,
Ashes around me rise up
As the roots entwined in my skin
Break out,
We have broken out from
Under the boot that has held us down,
The system of disfunction,
Profit put before lives,
Eyes glide against the landscape
And yes, now we can begin again.
A new world, a new future can be built.
Norms smashed through
Like all these closet doors,
Life can be beautiful,
Life will be freeing,
Where people’s lives are valued
More than bodies on a production line.
Where gender is felt in colours
More than just blue and pink.
Of gold, of green, of red.
Where bedsheets aren’t sewn
In threads of shame,
And heads aren’t lying on pillowcases
Wishing, hoping, wanting to be someone else
Someone deemed as ‘normal’,
Hands cusped tight as voices whisper in melancholic prayer,
Someone they want, someone that pleases them.
Guilt taught from a young age
From pews that spew hate
Masqueraded as love.
Lives taken for granted
Like my body was taken from the ground,
And I can feel it in my aching bones
The turning tides, the sea is rising
With every foot that marches forward,
We have done this before.
We have said yes twice before.
We have shouted for control over our own lives,
Our own bodies.
We have fought back,
Pulled, pushed, dragged,
Those still living with an outdated view
About who should have a say
In what we do with our bodies.
We have done this before
And we will do it again
And again and again and again
Until each closet door swings open without fear,
Without prejudice or discrimination
Until everyone can be pulled up
From the roots that hold us down.
Queer News Tonight salutes Martin Lurther King Day.