I remember the night
when the barrel of the machine gun 
was pressing against his naked back 

Hands on the back of his head
smoke & sirens 

It wasn’t a joke:
You should have stayed in your rocking chair
with your solipsistic sunsets

But no, first they came for the wandering-J, the LatinX
the Commies, the Homos, and finally 
you 
who reached the age of Rimbaud

A wretched bullet
silenced the stream
where your soul took refuge

“When praying doesn’t help us”—the poet wrote

Oh God, deliver us from ourselves!

They opened Pandora’s box

Heaven, there is no heaven
nor future
while they snort on their golden
thrones

They’re coming for the saints and the nuns

Who?

The sirens are sounding 
Alarms go off 

Squirrels remain on the branches
the day is tinged with color 
and a shivering body
writes poetry…

***

Greenland is a little girl
running in terror
in the forest of Geopolitics

Pack of wolves

The key that opens the heart
has fallen into the well of nightmares

***

First, they came for the criminals—or so they said 
removed Maduro
bombed boats

One or two countries
Nigeria, Iran, Somalia, what does it matter?

Latin folks hide their faces

Hands in their pockets and 
let us keep opening detention centers
concentration camps
annihilation gulags

Re$ort for sale in the PALESTINE strip
Made in BB’s Kingdom

What a great time the guy had in Florida!

New Year’s Eve
French champagne
and chicks brought from the island 

2026 is the year of the beast
deporting the dark haired
tan skinned

National Guard in the streets

And now they are coming for the poets

Shot in the face
The world’s keyboards report the sacrifice

The beasts snort in their golden 
chairs

It was in self-defense, you know!

Free radicals—and perhaps wild ones—
anar-
Kists
rainbow

They are coming for the women and the nurses

Bertolt Brecht writes the last scene…

A dark shroud covers
the dissection room
of the pigs 
who are not to blame

agent orange is spreading in the minds of the zombies

***

Renée is reborn

In the stagnant winter air 
crows tuck their wings

a solitary hummingbird
announces the midday light…

January 2026

Jesús Sepúlveda is a Chilean poet who lives in Eugene and teaches at the University of Oregon. His work can be read at PoetaJesusSepulveda.com.