WOKE

by Bradley McIlwain

Burial of the dead after the massacre of Wounded Knee. U.S. soldiers putting Indians in common grave; some corpses are frozen in different positions. (Wikipedia)

Native American communities that had long wanted the removal of military honors for the soldiers involved in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre had their hopes dashed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in his effort to root out what he calls a “woke culture” in the armed forces. “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive, ‘don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings’ leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said Tuesday to hundreds of military officials at a ceremony. The defense secretary announced new directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness and painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by “woke” policies. Hegseth had announced last week in a video on social media that Wounded Knee soldiers will keep their Medals of Honor, part of a wider Trump administration move that Indigenous leaders and historians on Tuesday called part of a culture war against racial and ethnic minorities and women’s rights. —AP, October 1, 2025

Warriors whisper in the willows

Odyssey of blood and ochre 

Unheard under cannon fire:

No surrender—

Dancing ghosts raid the dawn;

Eagles still soar at Pine Ridge

Drums of the ancestors

Keep the fires of knowledge

No medals, no song, no glory;

Evergreens slope to the South—

Elders rise in the heart of the sun.

Bradley McIlwain works as a Teacher-Librarian, where he strives to provide meaningful and inclusive spaces for knowledge exchange and advocacy. He believes that poems and poets can be agents for social change. Bradley’s latest book Dear Emily was published by Roasted Poet Press last year.

MEDITATION ON OUR DIFFICULT NATIONAL SITUATION

by Lynne Barnes

“Give Me Shelter” by Kate Langlois

Empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.

            —Elon Musk

 

I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that does a lot of damage.

            —Charlie Kirk

 

I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.

            —Donald Trump, President of the United States, at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk

 

Empathy: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another…The first known use of empathy was in 1909

            —Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 

Woke: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice); first known use, 1925.

            —Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 

 

Yes, I am woke,

and I hear you speaking out

from a dream, talking in your sleep.

 

I’m afraid to shake you, I know you

startle easily.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

As you yell at me from your dream,

I’m afraid my voice, my touch

might trigger you to kick out,

hurt me.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

In your dream state, you shout

about erasing my Me

that I struggled so hard to free.

I’m not sure what to do.

 

Yes, I am woke and

I love the word empathy—

I too have talked in my sleep.

I feel you.

Lynne Barnes is a lesbian and a retired psychiatric nurse and librarian. Born in Augusta, Georgia, she has lived in San Francisco since 1969. Her poetry memoir, Falling into Flowers (Blue Light Press, 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award.

LITTLE TOMMY TUBERVILLE

by Ralph LaRosa

Was Tommy Tuberville
from Nowherville
deprived of lovely rhymes
in childhood times?
 
He thinks that hearing verse
makes sailors worse!
Is his little cry, 
meant to imply:
 
Soft sailors in collusions
of “woke” confusions
are fighters made Lambs
by rhymes and Iambs?

Ralph La Rosa’s poetry appears on the Internet, in print journals, anthologies and the chapbook Sonnet Stanzas and full-length collections Ghost Trees and My Miscellaneous Muse.

YEAH, I’M WOKE

by Gordon Gilbert

        My eyes not closed
 
to all the colors of the rainbow;
         this world is not just black and white
 
to men telling women how to live their lives;
         they can’t even manage their own
 
to the rich getting richer;
the rest of us, poorer
 
to the racism everywhere;
how to some, others’ lives don’t matter
 
to the worship of the gun;
some even willing to sacrifice our children
 
to those who have the one, true religion;
they want to impose it on us all
 
to those who profit from these endless wars;
         they are never the ones who fight them
 
    My eyes have been opened
    I see the world more clearly
as it is
                         not
                             as it never was
 
            and so,
              I say it proudly,
                     yeah,
 
       I’m WOKE !

Gordon Gilbert is a writer of poetry and prose residing in NYC's west village. Actively involved in NYC spoken word events since 2008, he has also hosted programs celebrating the beat writers, several African American poets and other poets as well,  including William Carlos Williams. During the pandemic, Gordon found solace and inspiration in long walks along the Hudson River. 

ANTHEM FOR THE WOKE

by Geoffrey Philp

‘Stay Woke, Go Vote’ rally stirs spirited emotions, heartfelt pleas

—South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 22, 2022

 

Where are the protestors from the summer of plague

who saw Black lives threatened, and marched to free

us from fascists and were greeted by an army of fear

mongers united in their cause to make sure change

would never happen, and began a campaign of lies

among the afflicted to sate the elites' lust for power,

 

that revealed their resistance to Black power—

the rising numbers in the cities they see as a plague,

so every cable series or news story is filled with lies

about Black crime—dire warnings that if we're ever free,

no one will be free, for we will have changed

America for the worse, and everyone will live in fear?

 

It's what Public Enemy was rapping about in Fear

of a Black Planet, especially in "Fight the Power,"

so we'd start the process of believing in the change

that must happen at the top, or else we'll be plagued

by doubters who will delay our quest for freedom

from their lies. For they lie. They lie. They lie.

 

But what if we stopped believing their lies,

the denials and gaslighting that keep them in fear

of shadows they've invented—that won't set them free

until they've given up their need for control, for power,

at the cost of the planet's life—before we're plagued

by circumstances, we won't be able to change

 

once the irreversible effects of climate change,

which oil company CEOs have labeled as a lie,

melts ice caps and releases viruses to plague

future generations, who will live in perpetual fear

of the next hurricane, heatwaves that disrupt power

grids, melt electric cables—when fresh air won't be free?

 

The ancestors' promise lives in the struggle to be free.

Ancestors like Marcus and Malcolm, who tried to change

our minds about the hold of the empire's power

over our people who have been educated with lies

about our past while others, paralyzed with fear

stare into the future as if it were a plague.

 

Rise, once again, and free yourselves from the lies

that keep us cowering in the dark. Rise, change your fear

from a plague of doubt into a power that liberates.

 

Geoffrey Philp is the author of the novels Garvey's Ghost and Benjamin, my son, five books of poetry, two collections of short stories, and three children's books, including Marcus and the Amazons. His forthcoming books include a graphic novel for children, My Name is Marcus, and a collection of poems, Archipelagos, which borrows from Kamau Brathwaite's "Middle Passage" lecture, Aime Cesaire's "Discourse on Colonialism," Sylvia Wynter's "1492," and Amitav Ghosh's thesis in The Nutmeg's Curse to explore the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and genocide in the Plantationocene. He is currently working on a collection of poems, Letter from Marcus Garvey.

SOUL

by Frank John Edwards

It must be that something is broke,

When the sermons that Jesus once spoke,

Would land him in trouble

In some Christians’ bubble

For being excessively woke.

Frank John Edwards is a former military helicopter pilot, now a writer and physician living in rural New York. He has had poems published in various journals including the Virginia Quarterly Review.

THE BIG SLEEP: ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WAKING UP?

by George Salamon

“Sleepwalker” sculpture by Tony Matelli at The High Line in NYC.

"...an age when Americans were sleepwalking through history..." —Haynes Johnson,  Sleepwalking Through History, America in the Reagan Years (1991).

It feels like we've been asleep since

The movie star charmed us to sleep,

Since our aspirations and expectations

Were stamped out of date and we decided

To sleep through the times when roles of those

On the national stage became vacant, when

Nothing could move anything to animate the

Emptiness we'd sleepwalked into, when every

Movement failed to resuscitate our consciousness,

We found ourselves alone and blind to what was

Waiting for us beyond the bend in the road, so

Today we cannot tell if everything has stopped,

Waiting for everything to start and we're just

Looking to find the right sequence so we can

Join again and, if all goes well and we the

People can find our voice and finally learn

To play against the rules and the rulers.

Is there reason to hope, or is hoping merely

Lying to oneself and  this poem merely

What I dreamt?

George Salamon lives in America's "heartland," but even so he cannot tell if there is still enough in the heart and vision  of Americans they can share and make known to those who look with contempt and condescension on "bleeding hearts."

BIDEN MY TIME

by John Kaprielian 

The old white man enters into the fray
appeals to those scared of women
minorities, socialists and gays.
Apologizes for actions in bygone days:
legislation, hugs, touches, and words,
Anita Hill not getting respect she deserved.
You say you are woke now, claim to understand 
the lives of everyday women and men but
I can't forgive you and vote in another
baggage-laden man unless there's no 
other choice to be made come election day 
to make damn sure Donald T***p goes away.

After graduating Cornell with an esoteric and useless degree in Slavic Linguistics, John Kaprielian found work as a natural history photo editor, which he has been for over 30 years. He has been writing poetry for 35 years and in 2012 he challenged himself to write a poem a day for a year and published the poems in a book, 366 Poems: My Year in Verse (available on Amazon). He has had poems published in TheNewVerse.News, The Five-Two Poetry Blog, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Naturewriting.com, and Minute Magazine. His poetry ranges in subject matter from the natural world to current events and politics to introspective and philosophical themes. He lives in Mahopac with his wife, teenage son, and assorted pets.