They sent me to death row

I refused to turn the other cheek - hell no. When I’m gone, answer them, blow by blow

Oh my little boy: they crushed your jaw!

Now I long for a window. Who will take care of my mother? She too was made a widow by the chokehold of the law

The cage is mute, worms are sleeping on the floor. No quilts or pillows, just walls. I already made my last call. Is the sky still blue on the outside?

An hour left, then I’ll sit on the chair. The brutes will clap their claws in awe, while I crawl out of my skin

Two thousand Volts will run through my teeth, shaking them out of place. I’ll be burning into space

Remembering my grandfather and the cotton fields. Sorry, I meant the killing fields

… Could have been a factory anywhere, or a mine blowing up in the air, because of a gas leak that wasn’t supposed to be there

To the owners of the means of life we’re disposable, faceless, always untouchable

The union of our self-esteem and imagination is their deepest fear - the great unmentionable!

Keep your mouth shut or you’ll end up in an ashtray with broken arms, unrecognizable

They’ll strangle you in a cop car, or leave you hanging inside of an elevator - like they did to me. The autopsy says I fell, nothing else

There was no funeral, my body went missing. Daniel, the priest, got no papers - he got deported as well

I’m Manuel and you are I. Let me fly at your side. Morning is nigh. The arrows of the sun do not lie

I was just a worker who refused to turn the other cheek. You won’t find my obituary in the New Yorker

... My blood is boiling. Tear me to pieces - I'll keep on writing and bouncing back

We refuse to keep on toiling for the wages of sadness. Enough is enough!

To the future daring to reinvent itself we’re indispensable. We're the liberators of nature and the creators of culture

Breathe, even if they send us to sleep a hundred feet below ground, all year round. Today is not our final destination

We are used to rise up with black lungs, in spite of the vultures. Come, let's overturn their shiny sculptures!

Trust no well-meaning missionaries. You won't find any wild flowers next to the ivory towers

We don't need any nursemaids to defeat the mercenaries of bourgeois law

Reforming the rule of these murderers is less than useless. We refuse to go down, one by one

A new world is struggling. It keeps on trying, it keeps on crying with the voice of the newborn

I don't belong to the few. The oppressed are my crew. Join me, unbroken fighters. Keep on smiling, keep on marching

Our hurricane is gathering strength - it doesn't need a cane to go all the way. We are used to stay awake

It will seem we came from nowhere, but we’re everywhere - like a rainbow dancing on a rainy meadow

I’m Manuel and you are I. Let me fly at your side. Yes, morning is nigh. The arrows of the sun do not lie

When I’m gone, answer them, blow by blow!