there are stars in their caps, soldiers
crouched as if the revolution
only walks at knee level. before them, a sea
of students: one adjusting his glasses, his face
turned towards some invisible turmoil,
this refusal that could bring everything
tomorrow or simply life. or simply
bullets slicing the Square, shouts
& fears running & running into bodies
that ripple
onto concrete
like children
napping under Beijing sun,
eyelids still as peace— still
as red pooling, as ink
resisting its meaning— resisting
the fist of a government crushing ambitions
into pennies
2024
Regular
Contemporary
2025
Agency
Doubt & Fear
Education & Learning
Memory & The Past
Politics
Strength & Resilience
Violence & War
Caesura
a break between words within a metrical foot
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”
Tercet
A stanza of three lines of verse that rhyme together or are connected by rhyme with an adjacent stanza.