Two Poems

Cassandra as a Catalonan at Election Night

after Florence Welch 

The daguerreotype of a prophecy is inked all under our thumbs. 
The ballot box, a coffin pressing its undead wiles for a new world. 

The minute hand is counting closely, a needlepoint to my eye. Unplayed Manila Sound from the vinyl still has melody, prying the fool’s lion-jaw open. The crowd is blind to the mania of information-dance in the darkness of their phones. 

Behind are palm lines where blades engrave the shape of a memory. Wipe the excess to accent mistakes. The law of the building was and still is brutal. The black mold burns rubber on the freeway. Reason festers away. In this dream, all my joys are paid 

forward. A smooth motion flies over my head, a bat of gopher wood harmonizes the minutes descending to music, my hands are lost in the frenzy & a pride of lions celebrating. & he’s still bleeding black on the freeway. And I am running, running against dreaming, 

breaking apart, dancing to get lost in a moment. Music, losing ink, nearing the final turn of the vinyl. I can see it now. I see it now replaying the truth caging us again and again. 

For my country

Balang Araw

TW: gun violence, child death 

someday, some day-bullet 
will split the air, how good 
morning pleases the sunrise to break all of us
out of bed.

* 

The first bird reports and a newscaster chirps
last night’s news with: 

A child— 
my mother enters like a split-end-hair of dawn— 

A child is dead— 
daybreak shattering from the window— 

A child is dead from a stray— 
sting her at the arms like a swarm of wasps— 

A child is dead from a stray bullet— 
she shut the curtains, like eyelids. 

* 

To say yes, in my language, is to extend, brighten a void.
Oo. A sun for a question to warm up to. A period
expanded to become a welcome imperative, a wound
open enough: to heal or hurt again. 

*

At the studio, the news anchor agrees 
with a resounding void, a distance clinging to measure,
Oo. 

Lost to the misplaced joy of a man’s handgun pointed
to the air, thinking that splitting the broad daylight will
not bear another wound in the night sky, is another
child.

* 

The news returns to the bustle of morning Manila.

Artwork by Leyton Cassidy

Jared Maxilom (he/they) is a student of Creative Computing at Bath Spa University, writing poetry to escape coding. Born in Olongapo, Philippines, they are currently based in Sharjah, UAE, where they write, study, and exist.

Leyton Cassidy is a visual artist and writer living in New York City. They recently graduated from Columbia University with their MFA in creative nonfiction. Their work focuses on growing up in New Mexico, nature, humor, death, and a lot of other disparate topics. They are currently working on a book, but it's a secret. Follow them on Instagram @gayandupset5000