POEMS FOR THE REVOLUTION, Vol. II
We advocate for the liberation of all people—from mind to body to spirit and beyond. And we are strengthened by each other’s courage to name our experiences, embody empathy, and cast a critical eye upon the corruption we witness in our world. As scribes, words are our superpower. We are here, and we are not holding back!
– From POEMS FOR THE REVOLUTION, Vol. I –
In the midst of chaos and collapse, the Scribes are standing tall, bravely sharing their words to offer guidance, resonance, and solidarity with all who feel the crushing weight of a crumbling world. As everything we once believed burns alive, we ignite the fires in our hearts and prepare to build something new, to rise up out of the ashes of destruction, greater and stronger and more connected than before.
As a continuation of our original collection of POEMS FOR THE REVOLUTION, this second volume contains over 50 poems by 20 poets, featuring a number of new Dandelion Scribes authors. Should you find yourself inspired to write a revolutionary poem of your own after reading these selections, head on over to our submissions page and send it in! We’d love to read it and perhaps even publish it in a future volume.
Thank you for being here, for reading & writing along, and for opening your heart to the Scribes’ subversive verses. We are deeply grateful for our growing community of poets & artists. Once again, we are here, and we are not holding back!
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I: I Witness An Empire Implode by Kate Lawder
II: With The Collective “I” by Amethyst Drake
III: All Who Were Sacrificed by Blair Correll
IV: Lebanon, Kansas by Kayleigh Dugger
V: There’s Something About A Revolutionary by RK Schmidt
VI: The Dead Ask Nothing by Cameron Cox
VII: Stand Up And Stand In by Cari Lynne King
VIII: Something You Can’t Beat by Joshua Walker (The Last Bard)
IX: Do You Ever Talk To Snakes? by Dane Osborne
X: And You Alone And Yet Beside by Charles Thomas
XI: How Strong Is The Human Mind? by Trent Sizemore
XII: Death By Daylight by Jade W. King
XIII: We Gotta Make It Out by Nikki Stanley
XIV: I Am Not Sorry by Artemis Rose Archer
XV: Brave Enough Not To Run by Frances Denise
XVI: I Will Not Sit Silent by Amber Sparks
XVII: R Is For Revolt by Angelia Ross
XVIII: We Are Not Holding Back by Olivia Gilreath
XIX: What Caused The Bombs To Rain by Brandon Thorpe
XX: Like Dionysos by Cheyanne Leonardo
To support a revolutionary poetry project by Dandelion Scribes & Rednecks Rising Media, read all the way to the end to find out more!
Announcing:
– from the holler to the sea –
THE ANTHOLOGY
AKIMBO
I witness an empire implode
in the dairy aisle
I check for cracks in the eggs
Their spiderwebs connect me
to the mother
whose children are hungry
to the mother
whose children are gone
(my taxes buy bombs)
to the chickens – also mothers
cramped in cages for slaughter
to the Great Mother
set aflame in hubris
all our relations
akimbo
⚘
SPIRIT SHRIEK
i feel impotent and cruel
brushing my daughter’s hair
all the while
my sisters are screaming over too-small body bags
gasping for air void of justice
WE CAN’T BREATHE
ripples through the aether
the whole world over
(and into the next)
my sisters stand in the wreckage
their worlds deemed disposable
while i reckon with blonde tendrils
and rage at the fates
both grateful and grieving she’s safe
HYPOCRISY
Empty words drip with false virtue
Spilling like tea from a damaged kettle.
Truth is earned and then burned
for the purpose of profit
While the dying embers of sincerity fade to shameless ashes.
Cynical, toxic merchants of deceit
would tell a lie a thousand times to manufacture its belief
Among the gaslit masses mired in defeat
To believe is a relief.
Yet it’s dusk in this country and we must save us
because no one else is coming.
⚘
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
Electrostatic thoughts erupt into
full-blown existential crisis.
In this field which Higgs gives mass.
I worship here.
Traveling alone, but relative.
In a solipsistic rage I cry out
to a cold, indifferent universe,
Only to be answered by your sonder.
I wonder!
What madness is this?
Chemical bonds connected, confined,
and contemplating their own existence.
The universe looks back in
upon herself.
With the collective “I”.
We if you must.
A coexisting hive
Born to live but a single life at a time,
Learning to be kind to one another.
SIDES
I cut my political teeth in college
Saw the world needed fixing
Listened to sarcasm, took it as gospel
I reasoned in theories and hypotheticals
Reality and politics don’t mix
Now I’ve taken my ball and gone on home
They’ve fixed the World Series again
Swipe a tear, think of all who were sacrificed
For this newest circus
Lose no sleep reminding myself
That it’s almost the same as it ever was
I am little but not meek
Still I inherited this world
I have to make sense of it
But I do not laugh at their jokes
I do not bow to their gods
I shake my head but hold it up
There’s a part for me that I will play
Where my riches aren’t gold
Where power is in forgiveness
Finding life’s simple sweetness is my own happiness
And not
The broiling furor of difference
⚘
HALF IN, HALF OUT
My mother itches
With disappointment
An unfulfilled life can be
Devastating
My father sleeps
Even when he is awake
Careless of the moments
Passing
They did what they were told
Went to school, got a job, married
A couple times, and now they’re done
Growing
I don’t want to put my feet in
Letting my life decide itself
With my undivided attention
Slipping
There’s a willful beast
Begging me not to bend
To keep my ears cocked
Waiting
He tells me to be
Grateful for the steps
Rather than resolve where I’m
Going
There’s more to all this, he claims
Like in a poem
When you’re still trying to find the
Ending
⚘
PROGRESS
Kneel down to the manmade gods who
Have taken on the burden of being ourselves
Salvation promises a heaven of ease
All they ask is to become a little less human
And when we’ve transfused our blood with crude oil
Mined our heart ore and traded it for bitcoin
Will progress still taste as good as that first bite
LEBANON, KS
When driving down Interstate 95, the Fathers
were born, lived, and died
in a brick home off each exit.
I was born off these exits in a copy paste suburbia.
The Fathers knew that their Child
would live long after Her expiration date.
They penned clauses for Her children to
cut off Her limbs, stop Her infection.
They just never knew
She would curdle with no acid.
“[America] is the only country that wonders what it is.”
As She spits in trash cans,
She grows neon batholiths, claiming Hell is real
while paving the Canyon and carving the Hills.
We must buy salvation like the Europeans did.
Years ago, after the fuck all pilgrimages and failed railroad lines
She stood in a chapel in the Midwest and asked “what am I?”
It replied “though sun bleached and injured, you are
something we have bore.”
I was born something.
I am something, I was born.
*A note from the author: The geographic center of the United States is at a chapel near Lebanon, Kansas, because of course it is. This poem personifies America into… something. Even She is begging to know what She is. And if She doesn't know, how can Her fathers? How can Her children? My partner once described a torn up American flag we saw flying as “sun bleached and injured.” Is that who She is? This poem references Starz Original’s American Gods, those pesky religious highway signs, and Mitski’s song Abbey.
A WARNING TO THE OPPRESSORS
Inspired by Wangechi Mutu’s “People in Glass Towers Should Not Imagine Us”
People in glass towers should not imagine us
Hot, sour breath of those above us, tongues of vinegar
and anger, chains dangle link jewelry from their wrists
as they wrap around the necks of my brethren
Heavy is the weight of the oppressors,
light is the weight of my heart
I am rooted, I am lodged in the throats of
those who would devour me
Your corruption brings rot, brings malice and iron
My blood waters the soil
I hope to wash away the sins you bring forth,
the blight you sow into the ground and the salt
you use to rain destruction
you will never be forgiven
you will be forgotten
your name will live on only as a whispered curse,
a malady of the bone and the flesh
you will be destroyed as we will be reborn, for the
meek shall inherit the Earth and it will be
ours to renew
I am of the world, I am of the water and
roots and soil and air,
you will be expunged
you will be forgotten and you will be no more
This curse I lay at your feet as I am brought
forward and lay ready for execution
⚘
SOULS OF OUR SOULS
I dreamt of a keffiyeh lost to the sea
The waves lapped at my feet and the
stones shifted under me, a house
Built from the bones of children just over
The hill behind me
When I woke, the salt from my tears
echoed halfway across the world
Ya Rab, Ya Rab,
may You kiss Your martyrs gently,
hold them as their mothers did
before they washed them
for burial
A generation of death and fire following a
generation of knives and catastrophe
Still you look away, you who have never
known the buzzing of drones and the screaming
of 825 families falling from the earth
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raijoon
Indeed we belong to God and indeed to Him we return
The taste of these words rots in my mouth, each day
I say them, every day I see another photo of a city
brought to ruin
(when i wrote this, the death toll was 6,000
it’s now over 40,000)
⚘
A NOTE TO FRED HAMPTON
There’s something about a revolutionary,
Something about a young man picking up a rifle
With Lenin in the other hand, fists clenched
And lips curled back
Hands dug into community, preparing a table
And a barricade, young women carrying
Water and singing to the people,
A better world awaits us, one we have to
Build, one we may not get to see
There’s something about a revolutionary,
Head held high while pigs pepper spray,
Smiling for the cameras while handcuffs clink because
You cannot scare the fire out of our bodies,
We know this world is ours to take and ours to make and ours
To guard and ours to cherish
There’s something about a revolutionary,
We make you shake in fear
While we keep our voices soft for the children and loud against you, against
Those who would gladly swallow us whole and pick amongst our bones
Because you can kill a revolutionary,
But you cannot kill a revolution
⚘
SINWAR'S STICK
Yahya means “God is gracious,”
a name worthy of a crown given to a man
who dreamed of the soil beneath his feet
and the olive trees, the name of a prophet
beloved by God, larger than life
and beloved by all,
a shadow haunting the labyrinths
of the boot on Gaza’s neck, poking and prodding,
ready with a sharp word or a bullet,
or a stick at the very end –
We sing about the glory of the martyrs,
the neverending light of a shaheed leading
the way to Paradise, the children who are birds
and the young men who are like flowers,
Yahya walks amongst them.
Yahya means “God is gracious,”
but it also means “to be alive,” and
with his stick Yahya showed that
Gaza is alive and has teeth,
the scent of carnations and the sharpness of thorns,
Yahya will live in us all.
⚘
ASHES TO ASHES
My chest collapses from the pressure of breathing in soil,
my fingers broken and dirty from digging myself out of my own grave –
they didn’t think to leave us shovels.
But I rest my hands on my heart
as the sky opens, a sign from Cavalry,
my lungs expand, my blood vessels the roots my bones the rocks,
I know safety in the arms that lift me from the ground,
The hands that that lovingly wipe my face and clear the refuse from my mouth,
I can breathe, I can breathe, and I breathe in the holiness of community
that sets me on my feet and shields me from the storm.
In turn, I will bring the shovel next time.
I will wipe their face, clear their mouths, bandage their hands and kiss their cheeks.
I will hand them a shovel and
we will begin again.
INCONVENIENT TROOPS
It would be better if I died
Because the dead ask nothing
say nothing
It’s easy to honor the dead, whose voices cannot rise
to speak the facts you’d rather ignore
It would be better if I died,
A young patriot lost to war,
for God and country, but I’m alive
And I fought for your right to hate me.
Because when a veteran dies to suicide
It’s easy for you to say,
“How sad, if only they could have received the care they needed”
But you’ll fight to take away the healthcare that saved my life
Transition is medicine
And the fact is, you only support the troops in theory,
but in practice
you would rather all of us died
Than some of us live to prove false your lies
Inconvenient troops with inconvenient truths
I fought for your right to hate me.
I fought for your right to think
It would be better if I died.
⚘
THE COVER
When I was young I was taught to not
judge a book by its cover
So why is it that advice doesn’t last to adulthood?
You think you can look at the shell and determine
What’s written on those pages
But a cover is just a cover
And a book contains a whole universe within
The cover doesn’t tell the whole story,
it only gives a peek, a surface level idea of what may be in its pages
And sometimes, not even that.
What happens when the cover of the book
Shows only a pretty pink bow
But the story inside is of a young man gone off to war
Fighting for the country he loves and believes in
Only to come home and find himself reviled
For the accident of his birth?
Could you blame the author for designing a new cover to better suit the story within?
Or would you call him a monster for refusing to rewrite the whole novel
Just to match the cover?
A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE WOULD FIX ME RIGHT NOW
After @the_frog_mage / Prompt from @amykaypoetry
So perhaps
that's what I'll write
here
A rant about
the state of affairs
the mistreatment of women
and gays
and theys
and anyone with a drop of melanin
Anyone who doesn't
pull themselves up by the straps
of the boots they ate for breakfast
Possibly a rambling
on how deeply I love
and how such
extreme
emotions are exhausting
Especially when they fall
on barren soil
met only with hate
or worse yet–
indifference
Or shall I speak
to the lonely
the afraid
and the scapegoats
Remind them fiercely
they do not fight alone
in a world
not meant to embrace them
I will stand up and stand in
when it feels like
everyone else stood down
⚘
KUDZU VINE
A pretty facade
doesn’t make it
any less invasive
Choking the life
from native flora
blocking out sun
changing the landscape
Realize swallowing swill
doesn’t come cheap
Be mindful of
who you trust
you’ll be the
next choked out
BURN THE SKY
I’m sick of watching silence steal my words,
Of swallowing fire just to keep the peace.
I’ve bitten back the rage that now erupts,
And now the storm will crack this world in two, at least.
Don’t try to calm me down with empty lies,
I’ve had enough of that soft, sugar sweet.
You thought you knew me, but I’ve seen the skies,
And now my thunder’s something you can’t beat.
I’m done with being quiet, tame, and still—
This anger’s burning, and I’ve built the flame.
You think you own the world? You haven’t built
The power of a soul who’s had no name.
So let it burn, let nothing rise but ash—
I’ll light the sky with fury, clash by clash.
⚘
FASHIONABLY FASCIST
They march in heels, their faces the same,
Dictators in dresses, playing the game.
The whispers of silk, the strut of disdain,
Commanding the masses, who feel no pain.
Each step’s a rule, each word a chain,
They sell us salvation, we buy the shame.
Wrapped in Dior, their truth stays untold,
A perfect society dressed in gold.
We’re slaves in their shoes, but they call it chic,
Bend our knees, it’s the price we seek.
They claim our hearts, then turn them to stone,
Flaunting their power while we groan.
They smile as they burn, watch the world turn,
We’re the sacrifice they make, so they can learn.
A revolution’s a trend, now it’s blood on the floor,
Fashionably fascist—no more lies, no more war.
⚘
CALIGULA REBIRTH
Aye, shadows fall once more upon the land,
As Caligula, with laughter thick as bile,
Ascends the throne, his sceptre in his hand,
And folly made a law, where reason’s vile.
The common folk, in whispers, speak his name,
Yet dare not breathe the truth they know too well—
Of broken oaths and glories turned to shame,
While kingdom groans beneath his twisted spell.
With gilded halls, he struts and claims his right,
As wits and scholars tremble at his gaze;
The wise are silenced, cast into the night,
And jesters, fools, now prance in golden blaze.
His hand, unsteady, grips the reigns of might,
And, blind, he spurs the steed toward ruin’s maw;
Yet sycophants cry praise, though fears alight
And justice cowers, shackled by his law.
In noble courts, the murmurs faintly rise—
“Was this the leader promised to our kin?”
But loyal tongues, to speak are seldom wise,
For wrath descends on those who dare to sin.
O spirit of the age, dost thou not weep,
As Caligula wakes from broken sleep?
WORMWOOD STAR AND THE PARTICLE ROMANCE
Oh, fair creature born quietly from the particle romance,
Everything you've whispered through the velvet blur of night
Haunts my obedience to the glare of the wormwood star.
My iniquities of tomorrow must not be the death of your tube-powered dreams
which expose the hidden maladies of the winter heart and dare to invoke
the coming of emerald days.
Tonight, teach me the words of the Warm Earth's tribe and with kindness I shall
return the bribe to my sister of wanton
Mercy. The fireflies own this blur and I ponder in vain the ablution through
crystalline touch to your bemused laughter.
The pale man on the white moon will pay us a quick visit
And the black death of fear will be his gift for patient sorrows.
Just hold me tight through these invisible cosmic waves, please, and remember
the promise of virgin morning.
⚘
THE REALITY OF SUNLIGHT
You become what you create
And it destroys you
Before you breathe all over again
And fly high above flaming ashes and smoke.
Love is the gray fog which blinds us
Before it's destroyed by the reality of sunlight.
It's in front of everybody
But nobody ever sees it.
⚘
SNAKES AND THE BIG BANG
Do you ever talk to snakes?
I do all the damn time and they give me apples
To eat in the garden of my mind.
In the center of that garden is the tree of knowledge
And the snakes tell me they find all the best apples there.
Ebbing and flowing downwards the river that glows in sad ancient night,
I see my ancestors in boats of ebony.
Some cheer and some jeer at the sideshow that my life
Has become.
My humor is only calamity to some.
The ghost of my father says that the common man
Will shatter the Earth Machine and leave it dismembered.
I don't know if it's a ghost or not.
I don't know if it's my father or not.
The common man will never eat the apple anyhow if they
Know where it came from.
This be only a tragedy spawned by a miracle called the big bang.
⚘
HELL FROM OUTER SPACE
The birds will have their revenge.
Just wait and see.
They're trained to kill by magnetic robots
And take no shit from the poor.
The Silver Surfer
Will save the day.
⚘
LAUGHING MOON'S TEARS
Within infinity,
The Beast becomes water
And when you see this splendor then say no more
say no more
for our tongue may not own the Heavens
nor do wanton eyes see
the laughing moon's tears.
⚘
TOUCH OF CHILL
Slippery ice remodels my soul's music
and never melts for my inner God is in
conspiracy with fire and brimstone.
This cold gaze touching yonder is my savior and sustaining virtue.
Nobody ever gets to see me or the disgrace of my battle scars as they fear the
touch of chill.
Spell conjured by the illusion of opposites.
a little sound is now we make and turn
around to pick up trash beside & n
tHe rivers and the lakes and streets and roadS
and sidewalks
a giant mirror there Exists among
G
the weapons of the future come to us
& you & u & yu the preacher says
Of newness not the old of cycle this
day not the same as others been have they
A
123 / 123 / What do you / feel of the / raiN::
Express to me & i’ll express to You
and ask tUrned outside in
Z
& how much is that human in the building
leave it don’t replace it
did you sign to me A
this title At The EnD And you alone aNd yet beside
PLACEBO
I asked how strong is the human mind?
And wherever my answer went,
Unequivocally, I knew to be,
Merely an understatement,
That's somehow related to this boundless vacuum of a fraction,
Because where mind isn't over matter,
Reality's but reduced to this conceptual product of sensory reactions,
Somehow
The observed becomes to
The observer a subjective deduction of itself,
Again your perspective, made your reality,
Into something else.
DEATH BY DAYLIGHT
As the thoughts of reality hit her eyes
she began to weep and cry,
all pain and sorrows of war
all the cries and screams of pain filled her mind,
her soul cracking and breaking
as she began shaking.
The pain in her eyes and grief in her chest
and she realized the world was coming to a mess
all the rage and war
but yet not a drop of mercy
as her once beautiful world began to die,
whimpers and weeps filled the cold dry air.
In the very last moments she thought to herself
the memories she made
and the days that she spent in the shade
she looked back on her life but did not fight
what was bound to happen to her
as the final seconds of life came,
explosion after explosion
the world faded beneath her feet
as she drifted away but this time it wasn’t
into a sleep…
THE WORLD
God said to the World, “You’ve gotta be strong.
This life that I bestow on you, it’s gonna seem long.
And that’s because it’s hard.
It’s gonna be rough.
There’ll be many times you’ll wanna quit, but then just look up.
This life, it’s gonna hurt.
You’ll shed a lake of tears. You can’t allow yourselves to drown, I know you’re stronger, dears.”
God said to us, in the sincerest tone:
“Throughout your life you’re gonna find yourself quite alone.
But you’ve still got a home.
It’s up here in the clouds.
We love you and we’re all watching, just so proud.”
⚘
HELIUM
It’s true what they say.
A gift is a curse.
A curse is a gift.
That curse is hers.
And her? That’s me.
I’m her. ‘That’ She.
That girl, who’s gifted.
Whose curse, has lifted,
her higher and higher
To the point I’m at now.
You look up and you say ‘wow’
I’m flying here, upside down.
I don’t think I’ll ever ground.
What feels so wrong,
it feels so right.
I’ll never leave this cloudy sight.
Not any day.
Not any night.
Try all you want.
Use all your might.
I’ll stay right here.
I’m meant for this.
My heart is home.
My head’s in bliss.
I’ve got a voice.
I’ll yell it out.
You’ll recognize it, in a crowd.
I’m all alone.
But I’ve got you all.
More than half of you hate me,
but I can’t fall.
I’m here for the duration.
I’m a fixture, now.
Get used to me.
I’m never coming down
⚘
GOTTA BE
I’ve gotta be me.
I've gotta be she, who is strong.
I can’t ever be wrong.
But I am. A lot.
Oh I’m human. Forgot.
I used to know it all.
My opinions were tall.
But as I figure life out,
more I know, more I doubt.
Life is scary route.
We gotta make it out.
I AM NOT SORRY
No longer do I say those three little words
No, not ‘I love you’,
I still say those
I no longer say, ‘I am sorry’, or use its abbreviation
I’m into affirmations,
and this is not one I chose to keep repeating
No, my subconscious stores it,
and my body doesn’t like it, it shrinks in their presence
I am sorry (subject + verb ‘to be’ + adjective)
Think about it, swap ‘sorry’ for, say… ‘pitiful’
I am not sorry, and I am not pitiful,
even if I mess up somehow, I remain
undivided
I am an artist, I am a seeker,
a quantum explorer of intergalactic hyperspace
I am a dancer, a poet, the fool and a lover
I am human, perfectly flawed and flora,
and I reserve this human right
What are the roots of this well worn phrase?
And, truly, in whose interest?
You didn’t even do anything,
you don’t need to say it,
there are no victims here, no tyrants,
nobody here needs to be rescued
Here’s where it became so ingrained, so automatic,
between the walls of the intuitions,
small children, learning the language of human,
of social etiquette and order,
Come now, let us ditch shame, blame and guilt
refrain from constructing unnatural division,
that risks becoming all out war
Remember and embrace instead
respect for difference, whilst nurturing oneness
Remember understanding, awareness and compassion,
down with making examples of, and morally judging, our children –
inner and outer,
instead let’s roll in the big bellied Buddhas!
Yes, the body loves that big bellied business,
spaciousness, breath and love
No, I am not sorry, I was never sorry,
but to let you know I hear, and that I care
if I do some action, or use words that impact you adversely
Then, whilst I cannot be over responsible for the emotions
of another, or how they see, or hear,
I listen, stay present, and ‘I’ could ‘apologise’ (subject + verb), but more likely I’ll
offer ‘My apologies’ (possessive pronoun + noun),
like a yarn bound bundle, a gift from my heart to yours
which you are free to accept or not,
either way, I remain undivided
Maybe sometimes I’ll even ditch the apology,
and instead simply offer my presence and acknowledgment
I see you
I hear you
I feel you
Accepting my human fallibility, I learn more about us,
whilst standing whole in integrity,
I commit to do my part, do my best, to soften the edge of
what is me and what is you
With you, I nurture this sacred ground,
where grasses and wild flowers grow tall
May it be the field Rumi spoke of,
beyond right and wrong,
yes I’ll meet you there,
and together
we’ll run free
(Oh, and in my humble opinion,
you are not sorry either
I love you!)
*First published by the author on Substack: I am Not Sorry
VICE VERSA
My silence
Holds more truth
Than my words ever will
For I am nothing but
A mirror
A holographic
Animated
Monument
You can project
Your reality to.
Everything you say or do
I offer back to you –
From your self-love
To your self-loathing
Your pure childlike essence
To the worldly noise
That haunts you
I am your dreams
And your fears
Rolled into one
I am the questions
You ask yourself
When you're brave enough
Not to run
⚘
DYNAMITE
Is this a catastrophe?
An anticipated emergency?
The bombs are going off
One by one
Some in tandem
All at once
And somehow you can watch the explosion
In slow motion
Is fate a product of intention?
You witness the choreography
The smoke before the aftermath
Pieces breaking and falling to the ground
Near and far
But you cannot yet make out the blessings from the curses
You once volunteered your time
Until you said “what's yours is not mine,
We all choose our own demise"
All the torn up paper and shrapnel
They aren't yours to pick up
They aren't yours to pick up.
⚘
BLEED
I can tell you about bleeding
Because I lost all my blood once
And I lived.
I can tell you that
Wanting to stay
And wanting to go
Can exist in the same space
And for that there is grace
I can tell you
That the human spirit
Is one to be reckoned with
And that the will to love
And keep loving
Is the most powerful force
You will ever feel
Rush through your veins
That moment
When you realize you're about to lose it all
And the only choice you have
Is to surrender –
That is when
In the quiet of it all
You hear
Your voice
⚘
FREE FALL
A life
Of being nudged
Into free fall
Situations gifted
As education, in
Trusting a bit further
By degrees
Wounds and fears
Systematically
Ripped away
From me
And I say,
“No wait!"
Tensed up to brace
For another scratch
Or scrape
“Not yet!",
Clutching sorry stories
And battle scars
Like precious armor
For an unnecessary
War
“Let it go, you are held"
Free fall, it calls
As I refine, redefine
Clarify
Returning to myself,
My life,
The only ting
That's truly mine
Free fall,
Net or otherwise
Miracles reside
On the other side
⚘
YOU ARE LOVE
You are love
Breaking open
And I am your safe space
You are love
Breaking free
I am your witness
⚘
PHYSICS
I used to be afraid of the dark
Of my own reflection
Always avoiding poison
Taught to seek perfection
A man-made prison
Would you like to know what I did?
How I got brave?
How I got out?
It was the fascination with fire
It was the desire to know pain
Mine
And yours
I stopped myself from running
I surrendered to the invitation
Because
The most important thing about physics
Is that when you look at something
It changes
I learned that
When you love something
It glows
When you touch something
It flows
I opened my eyes
For the first time
And the dark isn't so scary after all
As for my reflection?
She taught me compassion
A key... lesson
Your turn now –
Will you unlock the door?
Will you walk yourself out?
⚘
ASHES
Only dust and ashes left
On the shelf
Where our visions and imaginings
Accounts of our lives
Used to be
They rewrote our histories
Filled our ears up to here
With their dreams
So loud and far-reaching
We learned to kill our own.
To indulge in something true
Is frowned upon, as
Guilt-ridden luxury
Blasphemy
Their rhythmic taunting evident
A subtle acid seeping into our bones
They'd give anything to subdue
The bubbling human secret
The ones who dared
Knowingly and unknowingly
(But always willingly)
Tucked a love letter away in pages
And they found it
SORRY, NOT SORRY
The sins of many
are atoned by so few –
minorities who refuse
to line your bloodied pews,
yet on whose backs
your fortunes grew.
Curse the prisoner
but covet the sheriff
whose brutality you’re aware of,
in the name of lower tariffs
of which you’ll embarrass
yourself when shown
your share of.
This election has shown
that protection is
only for insurrectionists.
Understand this –
I am no longer a woman quiet.
I will not sit silent.
I will riot.
Yet the difference
between you and me,
is that I will do it
relentlessly.
Unendingly.
Peacefully.
REVOLUTION
R is for the revolt.
E is for life's education.
V is for the value of an idea that is real or imaginary.
O is for the outrage of government lies.
L is for the love of God and Country.
U is for the understanding of what is at stake – our Freedom.
T is for the tiredness and struggles of the poor.
I is for the ignorance of the masses.
O is for the opposition of what is at hand.
N is for one Nation under God with Liberty and Justice for All.
WE ARE NOT HOLDING BACK
We rise from silence, fierce and clear,
No longer bound by doubt or fear.
From mind to body, soul set free—
We speak for truth, for dignity.
With every name we dare to say,
A veil is torn, a path is made.
No pain too hidden, no wound too deep—
We gather stories others keep.
We see the rot beneath the gold,
The lies that silence, systems old.
But sharper still than sword or track—
Are words we forge, and we don’t hold back.
Empathy is our rebellion,
Listening is our boldest weapon.
We meet each other in the flame,
Not to be burned—but to reclaim.
Each voice a light, each truth a spark,
Together, blazing through the dark.
Our courage braided, line by line,
We write the world we dare define.
So hear us now—this is our stand:
With ink-stained hearts and open hands,
We are the ones who break the mold,
Not seeking power, but truth untold.
We are here.
We are rising.
And we are not holding back.
THE REVOLUTION WILL SELL MERCH
He takes and takes and knows their fate,
they can live 50 or 60 years
‘fore their fingers start to break.
They’ll depend on him and nothing else,
and when they start to lose their health
They’ll have to pay for that themselves.
His appetites are a source of pride.
He’ll throw away more than you’ll ever buy.
The system helps to build his wealth
so much you’d think he built it himself.
Tailor-made to get away with every dime he can,
and keeps him safe from the people and the state
and especially the worker’s revenge.
But they don’t care about workers rights,
he gave them other things to fight
Woke, trans, Migrants are
“coming for your guns!”
while he picks their pockets
steals their wallets and tells them their fight
has been won.
⚘
THE CONSPIRACY-CONSPIRACY
If you, in sound mind, come to a delusional person
to confirm their nightmares.
If you told him it was true, and they were out to get you,
but only you could stop it.
And if he embraced you in return,
relieved that someone believed him,
under the hope the two of you could
fight the evil together.
A civil society would call this a crime,
but if you’re rich, they call it politics.
No need for propaganda, they invent it for themselves,
just step into their nightmares,
and use whatever’s there.
Once you have their attention
there’s no need to mention
the things in their hearts
you whisper those parts
It take very few words
for them to know what you’re about.
When their bank accounts are
negative, you can finally
toss them out, and a couple blue
lives come by to
kick them out the house.
⚘
PROFIT
The company got their wishes granted,
they’re getting rich selling war repellents.
You can save a slave
from a diamond mine
for just a dollar ninety nine
you don’t have to pay it very often
that’s a whole cup of coffee
off your conscience.
You can shit in the ocean,
and buy all you want,
they’ve restocked the shelves
at your favorite spot.
⚘
BOOTS
Volumes of empty details preserved
by the loyal subjects of the king
Their mouths are wide
with garbage inside
and when you challenge their
beliefs they back down and hide
ignoring everything you ask
with a lazy wave
“The time for argument has passed”
is all they will say.
They know their beliefs are open
to attack,
they say
“Fuck the Government!”
while wearing a president hat.
Don’t tread on me,
unless you’re a cop,
then blow my brains out
at the next traffic stop
⚘
HOTDOGS
I’d love to meet your mother but I’m tired
too
and still, the halls are full of violence
and I don’t want to get killed. We stole
a box of danger and we spilled it on the
floor
the box was full of wicked things
weapons, lies and war
we tried to wipe it up with books
tore out every page, but
what was written on the paper is
what caused the bombs to rain.
Things discussed in passive tones
as bullets fly, we’re safe at home.
We see faces covered in dust
and blood
through the buffer of the screen
we hear their cries
In a foreign language
but still know what they mean.
I’d love to meet your granny
but I’ve got to get some rest.
I had to walk home in a bullet
proof vest. I’m gonna
steal some heaven’s gate
from the miracle desk, and
If it doesn’t get resolved, by god,
then
It’ll get addressed.
We’re filling our plates in the
United States,
We ate a 100 pack of hotdogs
and we locked up all the gates
Then we lit up some
fireworks, cause it
was time to celebrate.
The in-group tells the out-group
“It’s heritage, not hate”
the inmates watch the sky flash from
the window of their cell
and celebrate their independence
from the laurel county jail
The animals are frightened still, quiet
as the sparking
light fades,
and the children point
their fingers like guns, and slam the
hammer down just as the explosion
comes, they try to get their
timing right, like everyone else
who came that night
to waste some food
and drink some booze
seemingly out of nothing but spite
⚘
“DEI”
I hesitate to write about race, because I don’t know what it’s like.
We all have troubles, we all have strife, that’s all a part of Life.
But I don’t know what it’s like to be judged by the skin.
To be blamed not for who, but for what I am.
I can crash a car, sink a ship,
get a job, or win a gift, I’ll be judged by my actions, but that’s where it ends,
It won’t be blamed or attributed to the color of skin.
Every time I hear of a disaster accident or mistake, can’t help but think
“I hope it’s a white guy” because I know what they’ll say.
They’ll never admit it, or anything else, but they start off
“I’m not racist, but”
Then tell on themselves.
I can’t imagine clawing, and fighting to bring my station higher,
and to have my success dismissed as a
“diversity hire”
I’m not even sure how it gets in people’s heads.
The rich just know it’s a powerful wedge.
That if we united based on class,
they’d all be run out of society like venomous rats
So they blame your neighbors,
for what they caused themselves.
To disconcert, fuel hate
and accumulate more Wealth
KNOWLEDGE
once upon a time, the angels
told us something true
when asked just how the villains hide
the garden we once knew:
a serpent steals our knowledge
and fills us full of ilk –
we milk the breast of ignorance –
seek god amid the filth –
finding curses and black magic –
making misery of mirth –
invest to turn the rich man’s dollar
into twenty times its worth!
he’ll throw you a few pennies
from the pockets of his thanks:
shallow – how a fortune pools
like blood from bank to bloody bank.
he turns the river redder
as crimson stains the lamb
and drunk on his own power
drives the people from the land.
he taxes us to wield his weapons.
he taxes us to fight his war.
he taxes us when we are screaming
we can’t afford to give you more!
you’ve taken 40 hours
of our lives week after week –
health – sanity – and spirit:
simple fuel for your machine!
you cut us from our purpose
and carved a weaker path
paved with fear of failure and
mistakes in made-up math –
for the monster running numbers
left love out of the count –
forgotten when one feels himself
less human than amount –
money managed by the mountain –
where the river runs around –
getting redder by the hour –
and blares the warning sound!
⚘
AMNESIA
we are all afflicted –
hunched over the digital monolith as if
we could hold the glow of truth atop
the lifelines etched into our palms.
these hands
are no accident – meant
to collect abundance –
peel away the excess
so that we may sink
our teeth right through
to the heart. live loud
with juice dripping
from our lips and hold
these hands like stars
up to the heavens and sing
a song of praise.
just what is the price of forgetting?
losing ourselves in the oppressive
imagination of those who claim
dominion? giving ourselves over –
beyond the bone – down
to the very dirt – diseased earth –
that will one day bury
our bodies, cover
corporeal memories
with microplastics
and glyphosate
and shrapnel stamped with labels
that say MADE IN THE USA.
when will we wake up from this
amnesia – this anesthesia –
administered by deceivers
who call themselves “leaders”
presenting poison as though it were
medicine, propaganda
as though it were news?
say, i refuse! to misplace myself amid
the chaos: the accuser’s subterfuge.
⚘
POVERTY
is being trapped
in the excrement of your
empire – earning
the right to exist by
mangling our minds
for money – handing
your currency
to cashiers in exchange
for what was already
ours –
fuel our cars and cruise
the prison yards
you line
with power poles and runoff
streets, rip the branches
from our trees, dump
the ashes of your industry
into our rivers –
watch us all get sicker
at the same rate
that the rich
get richer.
poverty is no pretty picture
as we pay to poison ourselves
from body through
to spirit
and no one wants to hear it
but the truth is we’re already
in the gas chamber
labor camp
interrogation chair
and we hardly dare to notice
such creative
warfare.
⚘
AUTONOMY
we are wasted
in a world where the body
is little more than a cemetery,
sacred landscape
littered with the corpses
of consumerism.
to return to the temple
and once again
access the garden,
one must perform
the greatest act
of independence:
admit the state won’t keep you safe!
they say they give, but then they take
your divinity –
replaced with rights,
quite easily alienable
and governed by
what works best
for the elite-elect.
there is no room for personal
let alone planetary
autonomy
in a society that seeks
only to conquer and control.
i turn my eyes this time inside,
de-colonize my soul –
⚘
JUSTICE
the undoing is upon us – the signs
have been there the entire time –
though we have stared and then
ignored – the ghoul who’s guarding
our front door – as if america’s
motives weren’t written in
the language of slaughter and
slavery. how could it ever take
any more than one trip to jekyll
island? – where the financiers hung
chandeliers over ill-fated foundations,
borrowed the blood of black magic
to enshrine their own heretical
control – create the currency of
poverty and exploitation.
on st. andrews beach the wanderer
reached the shore – and how that ship
full of humans found themselves
transported into bondage, handcuffed
to brutality – decades after such
a practice had been officially
abolished –
who the fuck cares about your historic
hotel garden golf course dripping jewels
cottage-town carriage ride through the
christmas lights – when the whole place
and everything after was built on the back
of obscene oppression?
how does one walk the path that 800
feet once ran, cut through the ancient
woods and not feel moved to burn
the mansions down? even the oaks
are crying out – tormented skeletons
turned driftwood on that haunted
beach and the bones have nowhere
to go but back into the sea. there
by the water we prayed for peace
but not before justice,
for all
who see.
⚘
LIBERATION
is not sponsored by satan, cloaked
in the costume of corporate america.
freedom
won’t follow the ascension
of another fuckin suit.
you want the truth?
revolt will reclaim
the ancient ways,
lead us to remember
the winding, spiraling path
of (no) return.
liberation is the will to learn
that sovereignty
belongs to community –
not to the illusion
of nations.
in simple terms:
if your ambition is to govern
then you do not have the temperament
for leadership.
if your desire is to rule
then you are not fit
to occupy the throne.
you have no business
making decisions
if you think that land and life
are things one man can own –
and so
we must unchain the mind
from ideology – open
primordial unity –
move
consciousness
like dionysos
through water
and wine
and weeds –
wear the face of blooming flowers
and whisper to the seeds –
and then
he leaves…
the mask now just
a lifeless husk
severed
from the rumble
in the belly
of the beast.
*These six selections were first published by the author in The Book of Abstractions.
from the holler to the sea
THE ANTHOLOGY
Keep reading to find out how you can support a revolutionary poetry project by Dandelion Scribes & Rednecks Rising Media!
We are curating & publishing a print anthology of poetry, prose, journal entries, personal statements, photography & artwork created by survivors of Hurricane Helene. The goal of this anthology is to give survivors a chance to tell their stories – using their creativity & artistry – to map out a blueprint of survival and community-building in the wake of catastrophe, and a way forward in re-establishing our relationships with our mountain lands. The finished product will be sold in-and-around affected communities in Western North Carolina, and all proceeds will benefit mutual aid efforts for our friends & neighbors who are still struggling to recover and rebuild after homes and infrastructure were destroyed.
At present, we are collecting donations (via the community Kickstarter linked below) from folks who would like to support this project. Donations will pay for things like upfront publishing expenses, labor, and getting a free copy of the final printed book in the hands of each contributor. All the information about the book and what inspired this project is on our Kickstarter page. There are shoutouts, gifts, and prizes available at each level of support, starting at just $5.
If you can’t donate right now, simply sharing this link & information about the project is immensely helpful in finding support!
To read the original digital Dandelion Scribes article that inspired this project (including a sample of works that will be re-published in the print anthology), please click here.
If you are a survivor of Hurricane Helene and wish to learn more about how to submit work for publication in this project, please click here. Deadline is June 6 for publication this fall.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
With endless love & gratitude,
