News Poem | Untitled (My country)

Untitled by Ogundara Aoyka, 2018, acrylic on canvas

The 2024 U.S. election revealed historic and unresolved political fractures that betray the story of an America finally triumphant over deep misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. As the collective consciousness gives way to disillusionment and confusion, the decay of the collapsing U.S. empire eats away at its own ideals of democracy and self-identity. Her subjects are left fearful and uncertain of how to slow the rapid unraveling of their own future at home and too distracted and exhausted to stop the horror of genocide abroad. Contributing Producer, Ianthe Philips, reminds us that life will always prevail.

There is a certain cruelty here.

It draws parasites, dark beetles, pregnant flies, and vultures

scurrying, poking, feeding, and positioning 

over what appears to remain

It emanates a sickly sweet stench

burns and irritates the eyes like dust and smoke

and echoes hurt and horror in the twisted 

unrecognizable lines of a decomposing thing

So that even the least kindness

a thank you, a patience, an unconscious consideration

momentarily shifts the gaze and quickens the lungs 

with furtive memory of grace, of the unpolluted

It may even rend tired flesh to expose raw and solemn bones

but like all rotten things

The cruelty here cannot last. 

Not for always. Not forever.