Tag: oppression

Ahead of the Storm

By Laura Ann Reed

                                  after Osip Mandelstam

In the aluminum light pooling
on the juniper
the tendrils appear to compress
and contract, the blue-green needles to flatten
as though made by dread alone
into a beaten weight.
At the same time, no one can believe
the expansive passion of the roots.
It takes a tractor to extract them.
We think it’s theirs: such fear,
such love.
But in the temple of our dreams
there it is in ourselves.
There it is.

Laura Ann Reed is the author of the chapbook Homage to Kafka (Poetry Box, 2025). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in ten anthologies, including Poetry of Presence (Grayson Books, 2023) and The Wonder of Small Things (Storey Publishing, 2023). Visit her website.

Photo credit: Konrad Glogowski via a Creative Commons License.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.

Duality of Dogma

By Nardien Sadik

In the church of lights,
where the nuns pray faithfully each morning,
beating even the sun in rising.
There is undeniable spirituality in every crevice,
every knee bowed a testimony to our God’s authority
and a defiant expression of faith in a country that would rather see
a Copt shot dead than alive and evangelize.

The invasion was only the beginning of a lifetime of tribulations,
but the blood of the Coptic people never ran dry,
despite many an attempt at erasure.

Presently, in anaphora,
a symphony of hymns sung by simple saints,
interrupted by the stubborn reminders of our captors
every day.

In a language forced down our throats, or having a tongue cut out completely,
we swallowed blood
and spat out Arabic coercively.

The sisters, unbothered by this they continue their melodies with a smile.
The act of defiance is small but powerful.

I learn what it means to fight peacefully,
turning the other cheek to
sing our next psalmody.

Nardien Sadik is a Coptic American spoken word poet and Georgetown Law student living in Washington, D.C. She has been writing since she was fourteen, weaving together themes of identity, justice, and belonging.

Photo credit: PF Anderson via a Creative Commons license.

A Note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.

the arrogance of illusion

by conney d. williams

 

the hope of this people,
like tectonics, quake
under the abusive weight
of impostors sitting
upon its collective breath
still engulfed in protest
dissenting to comply
with its own extinction
and these impostors
or parasites
would pillage
even the safety from victims
even as they
disintegrated in obscurity
human waste
inside foreign landfills
there is no mention
of memory
or ancestors
because super predators
eat the bone
suck the marrow
claiming copyright & discovery
over souls still starved
like refugees excommunicated
from access and accomplishment
this is the way of colonizers
and disease
never ask for introduction
infect every cell
with their own freedom
their own salvation
antidote and recovery
are not options
only the arrogance of illusion

 

Conney D. Williams is a poet, actor, community activist and performance artist with two collections of poetry. Leaves of Spilled Spirit from an Untamed Poet (2002) and Blues Red Soul Falsetto (2012); two critically acclaimed poetry CDs, River&Moan and Unsettled Water. His new collection, the distance of observation, will be released August 21, 2021 by World Stage Press.

Photo by Randy Jacob on Unsplash .