Still I Rise : Maya Angelou resurrected to sell helicopters to billionaires

How do you celebrate the life and thoughts of Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014), the American poet and civil rights activist? Well, if you’re running the twitter account for Billionaire Magazine – “the Official Account for Billionaire Magazine. World’s Finest Marketplace. Buy & Sell Jet•Yacht•Supercar•Estates Non-Political” – you see her words as a tool with which to flog ridiculously expensive stuff.

“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise!” says Maya Angelou in Still I Rise – her words now stripped of context and placed in the mouth of a private helicopter.

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou – 1928-2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise

Anorak

Posted: 8th, August 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, The Consumer Comment | TrackBack | Permalink