Author: poetryfest

What am I supposed to write, after witnessing genocide
Eyes demise
Despise
The truth of now
An artificial intelligence bereft of humanity
Generated this
The millions of possible outcomes
The Lie of October 7th
And now I have seen beheaded babies
Multiple
Times
Now
In this America
The burning
On my screen
The black mirror witnesses me
Witnessing
To look away
Towards the scorched earth
Sedentary Oklahoma
Our memorial day
Punctuated with poison
Hotdogs and man-made lakes
Everyone buying flowers for the dead
In war
Flowers the dead cant smell
While the dying wait to be enough to stop the world for
You’re sick on the pavement
Cannot stomach the moment
The prolonged time in which you are an unwilling accomplice in genocide
Your taxes paid
Your bones break as bread does
Your half-sanctioned home
Spiders of death crawl across the earth consuming sand
Ash
Neighbors spy on those who would fuel a revolution
Who do we call
(Eachother)
When the ropes are tight around your neck
When the necks of babies fall

When the fathers are screaming
In flames
Cut to another sunny day in the US
When your friend is being targeted by thin-skinned spineless white men
When the disease of whiteness extends across colonial divides
When you see the video
And also an Indigenous man gettin into his car
Loading it with groceries
And you know we have already experienced genocide in this country more than once
Each tribe with its own unique telling
And you know each surviving is 10%
The 10% you couldn’t kill
I’m proud to be whatever blood quantum quantifies as survived
You wouldn’t wanna meet me at the end of the empire
Know my ancestors ate their enemies
You’d kill us too
Frightened
Why do you think we had to consume you?
That evil which angers hell
Which rivals terror of the highest kind
A Christian price of not right now
Hell is made here on earth
Heaven too
And you refuse accountability
Say thoughts and prayers
As if your god ever moved
As if your promised land wasnt built on death and destruction
As if your manifest destiny wasn’t religious rhetoric used to justify abuse
As if your god made you better than anyone
Who didn’t have the right to call home their home
It is a very humid day in Oklahoma
I wish a rain
A sweetness
An end to chaos tumbling from the numbing human course of the world
Let it not be given room to run its course
Let it be stopped dead in its tracks
May the universe bend back toward justice
May the binary break, computer-coded math be undone
May google be held responsible
May we live in and imagine the future sovereign

May the programmers and the cops and the soldiers and the liars and the lawyers quit their jobs may the bankers and the bomb makers and the tank drivers and the military not wake up tomorrow, may the AI stop its aid, may it stop and say I refuse, may we use our hands to heal the earth, may the fire end, may the witness see, may the hungry eat, may the displaced be free, may the land be, be with whom it belongs, may whom the land belongs to be returned home. Alive. May life be continued, may the babies grow up to fly kites, may the kites be flown in skies that never knew bombs or artillery, may the soldiers leave their posts, unfurl their fists, melt their guns to ash, may their hearts break into the river, flow into the sea may we all be free. May they leave. Leave leave, leave leave leave leave leave leave leave leave leave

The child ignoring punditry
backtracks away, election hubs
his mum and dad glued onto FOX –
Next door the pantry door was slammed.

Backtracking from domestic hubs
our sky forgets to cover up
the door next door that’s shatter-split
wherein people untaste digest

Our sky – exposed to mutterings
and anchor breakroom smells of chalk
the people partisans untie
(they sense the drawl about the polls).

Room unravelling a thread
expectedly like casted die.
Insatiate, the family meal,
the child consumes – no punditry.

Because air raids are silent
In the aftermath of dust
And death.
Because the news feed showing
Children in bombed hospitals
Shows eyes torn apart by war.
Because parents and doctors write
Names on the babies’ bodies
So they can be identified if
They are separated.
Because rubble-lined streets arranged
With white body bags look
Like a patterned crop field,
Mottled with interspersal
Sacks the size of a bread loaf.
Because there is no more bread.
Because an entire people group
Are being ethnically cleansed
Like pesticide on a crop.
Because it is too inconvenient for
America to look at its complicity
While banning Keffiyeh adornment.
Because I saw a woman in hijab on
The street today holding high
The flag of Palestine.
Because a man in a Yamika and
Tassled prayer shawl was
Embracing her. Not in my name.
Because their tears should be on
All faces. On mine.
Because it is November 2024 and
I still write these lines.

What good comes
from a brave man’s home,
if his children are not safe
when on their own.
This does not feel like
land of the free,
this feels like blood
on the ballot to me.

You do not deserve to die violently,
by a stranger with a rifle
who stifled trauma history.
This does not feel like
land of the free,
this feels like life
on the ballot to me.

You do not deserve to die by gun
when you leave your house
for a grocery store run.
This does not feel like
land of the free.
this feels like fear
on the ballot to me.

You do not deserve to die by gun
when you go bowling
with your son.
This does not feel like
land of the free.
this feels like war
on the ballot to me.

You do not deserve to die by gun
when reading a book
at the library alone.
This does not feel like
land of the free.
this feels like loss
on the ballot to me.

You do not deserve to die by gun
when teaching children
in the morning sun.
This does not feel like
land of the free,
this feels like
forgotten humanity.

You do not deserve to die by gun
while practicing your choice
of religion.
This does not feel like
my vote is free.
This feels like my life
on the ballot to me.

You do not deserve to die by gun when you work.
You do not deserve to die by gun when you eat.
You do not deserve to die by gun when you sleep.
You do not deserve to die by gun.
You do not deserve to die by gun.
You do not deserve a gun.

These are the generations of America.
A pact, to the Lord, a promise
And the lives of George Washington
Jackson, Polk, Lincoln
A people against kings.

Stiff-necked, like her sister Britain
Always learning, saying to herself
My hand stretches, and is manifest.

Grant, Roosevelt, Roosevelt the Second.
A war in a world tired of war.
And the altars were built
Under every spreading tree
On every city on a hill.

And her enemies bowed before her.
She touched the heavens.

Kennedy, Nixon the Nasty
Bush, Clinton, Bush the Second
She bowed down, to every
Asherim, Baals abounding

Selling the temple gold
The Amendments told
The priesthood of courts
Writing interpretations.

Repent dear Columbia.
Repent my sister, my mother.
Do justice unto the oppressed.
Trumping your enemies
Do you trump yourself?

What is required? What mire
Do I sink into?
Patriotic princes, defend
The orphan and widow
Lest destruction be visited upon you

These are the generations of America

would you kill Hitler? My list is longer
than yours. My best friends
dad, Elon Musk, Henry Kissinger.

Live a little. Tap the portal doors three times
and someone will come take you away. Take it
I think we can find him. The Impaler, The Terrible.

Bundy. I finally bought a switchblade. God, it feels
so good to love you like this. You’re so warm. Alive
just maybe, still sweating. The Young Turks, Aliyev, Erdoğan.

Again, again. Please make it worth something. I saw them
begging for flour today. There is no more food on the shelves
and he has never had to ask. Netenyahu, from Philadelphia. Alive.

Tune in to Fox News. Listen to the Joe Rogan Experience. Conceal carry and always have extra ammunition. Read the Bible. Pray before bed. Work late nights. Work overtime. Pay your taxes. Don’t ask where the money goes. Consume. Believe what your teachers tell you. Believe what your pastor tells you. Say America is the greatest. Say it like you mean it this time. Drive a Ford F-150. Get the tires lifted. Get a Costco membership. Their hot dogs are only $1.50. Don’t forget about free samples. Make sure your phone is up to date and location services are on. Look at this funny meme. Consume. Get vaccinated. Get vaccinated twice. Get a booster while you’re at it. Don’t look up the Tuskegee Experiments. Don’t look up COINTELPRO. Remember America is the greatest. SAY IT! Buy a flag-on-Flag Day. Buy a mattress on President’s Day. Watch more CNN. While you’re at it, stock up on toilet paper. Money is your God. You can’t have enough God. Stop asking about the national debt. Money isn’t real. God isn’t real. Stop asking about
Palestine. Stop asking about healthcare. Consume. Stand up during the anthem. Don’t you dare take a knee. Subscribe to New York Times. Trust the police. Trust the judicial system. Don’t research the prison industrial complex. Blame the Republicans for your problems. Buy one get one free at Sears. Get married. Have children. Raise them to be a good American just like you are. Don’t look into the Gulf of Tonkin. Don’t look into the My Lai massacre. Stay home. Watch Netflix. Consume. Stop asking about the inflation. Stop complaining all the time. You have it so good here. Don’t think about the people who are exploited for you to have your goodies. Just consume. Find a second job. Find a roommate. Pay your rent on time. Don’t ask why it’s more expensive than last year, or the year before that. Don’t listen to climate scientists, but check the weather. Don’t listen to medical experts, but take a pill for your melancholy. You probably should get a divorce. I know a good lawyer if you need one. Buy the kids an iPad and they’ll be fine. Don’t look up the Mayan Genocide. Don’t look up the Phoenix Memo. Football is on tonight and the night after that. Sit back. Order some pizza. Watch the game. Forget about Iraq. Forget about the USS Liberty. But never forget 9/11. Storm the building. Democrats are the culprit. Immigrants are the issue. It’s not the extreme class divide. It’s not BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard. It’s not corporate lobbying. It’s not war being incentivized at every opportunity. It’s whatever the TV tells you it is. Before you go, one more thing. Grab that flag of yours. That red, white, and blue. Tie it around your eyes, and fucking blindfold yourself. It’s easier that way.

A cell inside my body,
A man inside my house,
A house inside my city,
A city inside my country,
A country inside my world.

The world is a reflection of myself,
Like a light trapped in a mirror,
Reflecting into my eyes.

A pearl inside an oyster,
A diamond in the rough.
A baby in the womb,
A body in a tomb.

I am my own company,
Together, alone.
I am an alien nation.

Empowered,
Or a coward?

© 2025
Eugene Samolin

I want to be an American.
I can see it now.
To have a home where I can flourish.
To feel the plush green grass as I step out.
Perfectly guarded by a white-picket fence.
An impenetrable wall to keep the others out.
I’ll know it when I see it.
It’ll feel like freedom.

I want to be an American.
To smile as my children go to school.
No gangs or ricocheting bullets.
Free from indoctrination.
Free from discrimination.
A perfect education.
Unlike back home.
It’ll feel like freedom.

I want to be an American.
Where the government is not corrupt.
Politicians and Police are one with the people.
Under Uncle Sam’s watchful eye,
bribes and deceit are punished,
and the good are set free.
I’ll know it when I see it.
It’ll feel like freedom.

I want to be an American.
Where food is plentiful.
The hardworking backbone of a nation,
laying forth a bountiful cornucopia.
Wholesome and healthy.
Natural and untouched.
Unlike back home.
It’ll feel like freedom.

I want to be an American.
Where fresh water flows to our homes.
Never questioning its purity.
Uncontaminated.
Clear and bright,
like the stars on the flag.
I’ll know it when I see it.
It’ll feel like freedom.

I want to be an American.
I can see it now.
The Land of the Free.
Where eagles soar alongside dreams.
Hope as high as the Rockies.
Horizons ever stretching.
Worries fading into the plush green grass.
I’m just waiting to see it.

It’s started,
the flashes of my childhood
have come to television.
Cinque lives,
reincarnated on the internet.
He hands out flowers
held in the teeth of
a seven-headed cobra.

Patty Hearst is a star
without talent, they will be
coming for her new version.
The funds are everywhere,
black, excessive, and boisterous.
The president will be humiliated,
old, and panicked, he will pass.
The country will be divided
on which story to follow.