“Untitled” by Julian Manu (VOICES, Spring 2025 Poetry Competition Winner)

there are leafless trees standing,
living despite the coldest winter tallahassee has seen in decades 
it seems every year bad history is made
there are leafless trees standing,
swaying through the familiar breeze of fascist nazi ideology and false prophets 
shaking through the rise of generative ai that drinks more water than people, 
these are the strange fruits of your labor
leafless trees rendered inanimate 
executive orders passed killing diversity
a homogeneous way of thinking forced into the environment 
all opposition eradicated
everything is one big pesticide
one big weed to be removed, stomped out
oh but the rule needs just a few steps more to be absolute now 
never before in history have these laws been bent so easily 
broken so willingly
there is a tsunami of stupidity building; a tidal wave of ignorance growing look close enough and you’ll see the world drowning
the final stages of a process that began long before my time 
maybe a quarter of a millennium ago
the alarm bells are sounding
this process will destroy everything 
so that a small few can retain values 
until there are no people left to pacify 
no culture wars to create
no children to bomb; you’ll hear echoes of faint whistles and see guts flying through the air 
plains with no trees to sway or shake
those leafless trees WON'T be standing
no one would be left to appreciate their beauty anyways 
in the dust will be
barren, scarred, lifeless sticks 
standing for nothing
the billboards will drop, the banks will rot, the skyscrapers will gash the earth 
but this breeze makes things great again, right?
this breeze is the golden age, right?