Sovereignty
by Jeanette Caceres
My poet trees pick sovereignty
Even when blood dipped and
Frozen at gun point
My poet trees grow sovereignty
Not emptied barrels clipped to staccatos
Reaping bullets that pierced hearts for
Freedom callings echoed by dropped bombs and
Shaken bones in Iraqi cemeteries
My poet trees poke wounds like dissected wombs
Cuz every time a son dies
A childless mother cries
And Sudan is losing children to malnourished acceptance
Where boundaries trace which God you can praise
And faith is rooting blood shed
Leaving graceful martyrs dead
Splattered histories on flower scented state frames
Marking territory like we own it
Gaza’s stripped down to land battles over holy grounds
Where brown bodies rot into the sounds
Of mourning
But morning does not come fast enough
When freedom comes by way of death
So I do not question
If it is a choice or a last resort
For insurgents to wear respect strapped across their chests
When they lack weapons to win back their nation
And reason to themselves that if blood must be shed
Then who gave permission or said for it to be over capitalization
I’m the poet alive to tell this history
Because the ones who’ve died will not be guaranteed
The 12-font lines on the pages of our history
So I write this
Because I do not want to wonder
Which side of the story
My children will believe
Jeanette Caceres is a junior at New York University majoring in Latin American Studies and print journalism. She does spoken word and hip-hop theater and lives in Harlem.
Market Washing Machine
by Tara Brennan
Modern corporate armies in artificially lit office blocks wallpapered with
money and corruption spewing profit margins and wax politics wearing navy
colored uniforms with paisley noose accessories paper bag processed carb
counting lunches and dow jones dreams promoting chemical riverbeds acid rain
toxic earth and deadwood jungles for plastic gidgits metal widgets and
useless marketable thing-a-ma-digits in the name of consumer census by
manufactured culture shaping commercials that protect the structure that
enables some to get what they want while many can’t get what they need.
Tara Brennan lives in the Philadelphia area. She writes poetry, creates jewelry, and charcoals portraits. She will be attending graduate school next year to continue her education.
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