Star Spangled Swan Song
Design by Erin Choi.
Image Description: A map of UCLA’s campus is shaded in, with the exception of select areas in the center of campus being covered with the faded pattern of the American flag. White stars frame the perimeters of the map, and red text reading “FREE SPEECH ZONES” appears to be spray painted onto a gray background speckled with blue droplets.
Razed brows over mouths turned
down, we are taught
from cradle to coffin
to never speak
ill of the dead.
In the home, death must go
unsaid, instead, and
in our language,
coffin grows
increasingly fond
of cradle, anyway.
Taboo holds many flavors here–
but on my mother’s tongue, it curls
around statement,
action,
optics, and
demon-stration. And still,
we continue to reap
that same, strange fruit:
swallowing select
voices colored
“dangerous,”
sucking soft stained fingers clean,
tastelessly gorging
our same, bloated selves
while they plant
more and more and more
and more and more
and more bodies
in the soil,
on the daily.
Here, in this plot, objective (n.) spells
- goal, not
- neutrality (adj.), just as
objectivity authorizes
- neutralization (v.), not
- impartiality (n.)
Meanwhile, hear
headlines cry
Clipped ear
quick to condemn
political violence
in the Belly of the Beast, while
Cold lips
still dismiss
genocide
as same old
Conflict in the Middle East.
Yet there is no such thing as
CASUAL MASSACRE, just as
there can be no
business as usual
when our Usual Business lies
in weapons manufacturing–
Makes me wonder:
who gets to decide what
violence is
political? You
look awfully calm
for someone
standing with
a shotgun
at the mouth
of a mass grave…
Not enough skeletons
in these closets, so instead you Executive
Ordered a fresh batch
from overseas;
Meanwhile, what we see
is playgrounds still shelled while
“negotiations held,”
and you have the audacity
to yell that
We are making too much noise.
But if you pull your
head from the sand
and press an ear
to the ground, you will hear this wretched earth
scream
that impartiality is violence,
the fire “next time” is
now,
and that after death,
there is no such thing
as
silence;
after all,
you must remember:
every Martyr
births a witness
