Poetry By Matt Sedillo
Published 02/08/2022 10:27Am PST

Lady Winchester
I.
That is no country for guilty conscience
Laughing, learning in summer near lakes named in remembrance of murder
The young in their way stand as living monuments to generations of forgetting
II.
An aged truth unrenewed is a thing of genocide
The naming of avenue
The making of highway
The forging of boulevard
The foundations of national celebrations, psyches
Bodies of literature
Schools of cinema
Standing in pools of blood
III.
Oh pioneer
This is no place for honest reflection
And I have therefore traveled north
Towards doors and staircases that lead nowhere
Filled with rooms that reach for the dead
Passageways to escape their revenge
IV.
Once I heard the story of Lady Winchester
Building her mansion until the day that she died
In her time a marveled destination
For escape artists
Today sold as mystery to travelers and tourists as curiosity
Of what is past and passing
And they too in their way stand as living monuments
In a home built by rifles
In the great American tradition known
To run from ghosts

Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle" by academics, poets, and journalists alike. He has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, at numerous conferences and forums such as the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including the University of Cambridge, among many others. He is the current writer in residence at Re:Arte and author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (Flowersong Press, 2019), and City on the Second Floor (Flowersong Press 2022)

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Website Matt Sedillo