Directed by Desire Quotes

“I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“and if i
if i ever let love go
because the hatred and the whisperings
become a phantom dictate i o-
bey in lieu of impulse and realities
(the blossoming flamingos of my
wild mimosa trees)
then let love freeze me
out.

(from i must become a menace to my enemies)”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“Poem for My Love


How do we come to be here next to each other

in the night

Where are the stars that show us to our love

inevitable

Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness

and the rain

falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh

the black men waiting on the corner for

a womanly mirage

I am amazed by peace

It is this possibility of you

asleep

and breathing in the quiet air”
― June Jordan , Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery / stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors / to jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys / whose bodies / swelled purple and black into twice the original size / and tore the buttocks from a four month old baby / and then / they said this was brilliant”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“... momma
help me
turn the face of history
to your face.
- Getting Down To Get Over - Dedicated To My Mother”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“I am a woman searching for her savagery
even if it’s doomed”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“Here ends civility
Now we know the strategy of stars”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems

“we are the ones we have been waiting for”
― June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems