by DJ Benhaim
 |
| Cartoon by Omar Al Abdallat. |
I.
In the beginning was asphalt.
And the word was protest.
And the word was pixelated,
buffering between freedom and feed.
A crowd of imperfect citizens
chants like a country relearning its name.
The chorus is improvised:
No kings allowed—no crowns, no conquerors,
no saviors in tailor-made sympathy.
Their voices ripple through barricades,
become algorithm, become echo—
a national heartbeat with a stutter.
II.
I have seen democracy drag itself
through a century of luminous slogans,
its reflection flickering in each broken screen.
Still insisting: I am not done.
Once, the Founders gathered by candlelight—
afraid of monarchs, afraid of mobs.
They drafted compromise as scripture,
named it law and order,
muttered prayers to Reason
as though Reason were a god inclined to listen.
Some nights I wonder:
who will amend the amendments,
who will serve the servants,
who will remind us that equality
was never intended to mimic sameness?
III.
—No Kings Allowed—
the maxim mutates through the crowd.
Each repetition, a revision:
No Kings (but maybe a firm hand).
No Kings (but someone must decide).
No Kings (unless it’s my kind).
The chant becomes confession.
The confession becomes commerce.
Every democracy finds its vendors.
A man sells T-shirts beside a food truck:
LIMITED EDITION FREEDOM.
The poet buys one—
because irony, still, is cheaper than hope.
IV.
O Republic,
child of contradiction—
you legislate mercy
and enforce it with tear gas.
You proclaim all men,
then redact the margins.
Your pledge is a mirror:
every mouth repeats it—
none can see its cracks.
Still,
you endure—
awkward and miraculous,
a choir harmonizing
in seventeen unresolved keys.
V.
Night closes in.
The crowd separates into numbers.
The flag waves like a faulty signal.
Somewhere, a migrant waits at the checkpoint,
a senator rehearses his talking points,
a teacher grades an essay on liberty
with a trembling red pen.
And the poet—our witness,
our reluctant chorus—
writes in the margin of his notebook:
We are not failing,
we are rehearsing.
He closes the book,
steps into the dark,
and feels the fragile promise
of a nation still deciding
whether freedom needs a throne—
or simply
a place to sit down and listen.
In the beginning was asphalt.
And the word was protest.
And the word was pixelated,
buffering between freedom and feed.
A crowd of imperfect citizens
chants like a country relearning its name.
The chorus is improvised:
No kings allowed—no crowns, no conquerors,
no saviors in tailor-made sympathy.
Their voices ripple through barricades,
become algorithm, become echo—
a national heartbeat with a stutter.
II.
I have seen democracy drag itself
through a century of luminous slogans,
its reflection flickering in each broken screen.
Still insisting: I am not done.
Once, the Founders gathered by candlelight—
afraid of monarchs, afraid of mobs.
They drafted compromise as scripture,
named it law and order,
muttered prayers to Reason
as though Reason were a god inclined to listen.
Some nights I wonder:
who will amend the amendments,
who will serve the servants,
who will remind us that equality
was never intended to mimic sameness?
III.
—No Kings Allowed—
the maxim mutates through the crowd.
Each repetition, a revision:
No Kings (but maybe a firm hand).
No Kings (but someone must decide).
No Kings (unless it’s my kind).
The chant becomes confession.
The confession becomes commerce.
Every democracy finds its vendors.
A man sells T-shirts beside a food truck:
LIMITED EDITION FREEDOM.
The poet buys one—
because irony, still, is cheaper than hope.
IV.
O Republic,
child of contradiction—
you legislate mercy
and enforce it with tear gas.
You proclaim all men,
then redact the margins.
Your pledge is a mirror:
every mouth repeats it—
none can see its cracks.
Still,
you endure—
awkward and miraculous,
a choir harmonizing
in seventeen unresolved keys.
V.
Night closes in.
The crowd separates into numbers.
The flag waves like a faulty signal.
Somewhere, a migrant waits at the checkpoint,
a senator rehearses his talking points,
a teacher grades an essay on liberty
with a trembling red pen.
And the poet—our witness,
our reluctant chorus—
writes in the margin of his notebook:
We are not failing,
we are rehearsing.
He closes the book,
steps into the dark,
and feels the fragile promise
of a nation still deciding
whether freedom needs a throne—
or simply
a place to sit down and listen.
DJ Benhaim is an emerging poet from the Windy City—Chicago, Illinois, whose work explores current events, global awareness as well as Afro American culture and the preservation of its stories, history, and legacy. An avid supporter of the city’s spoken word and poetry community, he can often be found cycling along the lakefront, soaking up the sounds of local jazz and blues, or experimenting with a camera in hand. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sheila-Na-Gig’s AMPLIFY Anthology, Kinsman Quarterly, and African Writer Magazine.
