[Discovery]
Petrichor fills the air
Like destiny manifest
Men clad in boots and boomsticks
Clamber on to shore
Attack, The suicide of a peoples
Disease ravages tribal lands
The propagators of a genocide
As we attack
Claiming what we assume is ours
Simply because we found it
No regard, only greed
Cementing the mindset of the conqueror
As treaties turn to takings
Annexing this land
As cities rise, built on bodies
We claim, we take, we appropriate
[13 Colonies]
We rise, colonize
Take land like a blight
Declaring wars left and right
With no end in sight
Powhatan, Pequot
Bacon’s Rebellion
The French and Indian
The American Revolution
Enforcers of a hierarchy
Imposed upon others then ourselves
Taking and making
The New World our settlement
We took this land
With our bloody hands
Our foundation is war
Starting when we brushed ashore
[Mexican-American and Civil Wars]
Taking territories and men
Conflicts between us and them
It doesn’t matter who was there first
It matters who’s there last
Capture land and man enslaved
It’s a race to the stave
To justify what’s wrong
When two wrongs don’t make a right
The stagnant blood
Of former ties
We won’t compromise anymore
Distinct and divided on our shores
Independent fervor
Splitting us in two
Over the ideologies we form
Left with no eulogy of camaraderie
War on our own
Two imperfect unions
Clashing on eventide
Our bond is forged through war
[Spanish-American War]
Expansionism beyond our shores
How the tables have turned
I guess we didn’t like it
When “co-dependent” countries rebelled against us either
Walking past the stained mirror of our predecessors
Our reflection ignored, doomed to repeat
The shadow of war grows ever larger
Unrecognized until we face it
Clawing forward with no means of stopping
Nor anyway to stop
Gone so far it felt like there was no escape
Running through reform for war
[WW1]
Clockwork men
Marching into graves
From the war that happened too fast
For us to control
Smoke and shells litter ground and sky
As legions are sent to die
For a pointless war
Dictated by those above the cost
Tied together by the thrill
Chasing the high
Of being indomitable
Until it came crashing down
A Great War to end all wars
Because we feared what we were capable of
Innovation, industrialization
Weapons of mass destruction
Ending a war
The war built on mistakes
Built on industry
It’s our history
[WW2]
A history doomed to repeat
Since we choose not to learn from our mistakes
Only this time it’s worse
There’s more ways to grind people into paste
Scars of the past
Left with no time to heal
Making children into soldiers
As initiative takes the heel
Lands littered with graves
As it always was
Bodies filled with lead
Or vaporized and charred
Entire worlds destroyed
Extinguishing cultures
The lost never to be regained
Only to be mimicked in regret
Lives extinguished with bombs
Soldiers with no voice to cry mercy
The War to end all wars ended not with a bang
But dead silence
[Cold War]
And then the ashes fell
Trickling sins down our backs
The burning tomb we built
Gone cold and ignored
A silent tension lies in the air
Holding proxy wars in foreign affairs
Split and sliced
On the 38th
Silent wars held in secret
Lies told to American public
As orange and jelly rained from the sky
On shores afar from ours
Tearing apart the world
Two sides of the same coin
Never to see eye to eye
Nor heart to heart
Holding bombs of the dead
Declaring we’re mad
Who in their right mind would assert and assure destruction
Blowing up the sun on the horizon
[Gulf War]
Sun shining on the desert
As storms began to rise
Clockwork ticking
Endless drilling
Shimmering oil
From the fields of Rumaila
An abundant joy
To those who take it
Those who invade it
The ones who dictate it
Where the oil goes
The money flows
Because we need that green
And the fuel for our dreams
How else were we supposed to keep moving?
To keep the cog turning?
[War on Terror]
Dictators, invaders
We don’t want them here
Charging Afghanistan and Iraq
To make them our affairs
Marking the target and the innocent
Strikes from drones
Decimate the land
Cause retaliation of man
The charred corpses
Burned and bodiless
Lying in crumbling buildings
Within our mind
A war built on hatred
On prejudice and pride
Constructed from fear
And the emotions with it
Extended to today
But we don’t know why
We only know what is
Because we refuse to clarify
[Present Day]
Grasping hands
Asking why?
Why do we fight?
In every single war?
Because that is our bloodstained history
Because that is the “apparent” way forward
Because there is “no alternative”
Because who else will stand up to end war?
Well let me tell you this
A machine built to end war
Is a machine built to continue war
And that is what we are
So tell me, how will we move forward?
Nicholas Cummings
Young Chicago Authors
Young Chicago Authors offers high-quality programs that nurture artistic development, social-emotional learning, and academic success through poetry and performance. Its Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival is the largest of its kind in the world, gathering over 200 youth poets from across Chicago, Chicago-land, and Northwest Indiana. The festival centers storytelling over competition and fosters listening, empathy, and creative risk. The ten poets featured here advanced through the 2025 festival and offered lines that were impossible to ignore.
Poetry Foundation
This program is made possible with support from the Poetry Foundation, which amplifies poetry and celebrates poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry.
