Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back Houston poet John Milkereit with “Brutality—Don’t Lecture Me on What Being Brutal,” one of our Audacity poetry contest finalists, a poem confronting the everyday brutality humans show toward creatures we dismiss as vermin.
“Brutality—Don’t Lecture Me on What Being Brutal// is. When I wanted to ruin the lives of paper wasps/ nesting behind the window screen, I hatched// a plan to extinguish their thin waists and long legs.”
What’s striking is how casually cruelty enters the frame. There are countless moments in which startling violence is not only accepted but encouraged when an animal irritates us or appears to threaten our comfort. Respecting their space is often an option, yet we kill first and ask questions later and, more disturbingly, we sometimes enjoy it. John doesn’t scold; instead, he confesses his own guilt, unfolding it through an off‑kilter enjambment that mirrors his unease with his behavior.
Beneath the surface, though, the poem hums with a deeper resonance. The impulse to destroy what we deem intrusive echoes the brutal treatment of migrants in the United States, where ICE raids and border violence have normalized a kill‑first, justify‑later mentality. John never names this directly, but the parallel is unmistakable: dehumanization begins with the small permissions we give ourselves. If we can relish the power of killing a wasp, what else might we be capable of when fear or convenience whispers in our ear?
John shares a relatable moment of cruelty not to excuse violence, but to illuminate its origins, the quiet, everyday impulses that, if left unexamined, can scale into something far more devastating. He does this with a masterful combination of candor and subtlety.
Read “Brutality—Don’t Lecture Me on What Being Brutal” in Synkroniciti’s Audacity issue, Vol. 8, No. 1, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
John Milkereit is audacious and often conflicted related to the natural elements around his home in Houston, TX. Wasps like to build nests shaped as miniature galactic battleships docked in secluded corners between his windowpanes and outside window screens. As far as his writing adventures, he completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His poems have appeared in various literary journals such as The Comstock Review, Naugatuck River Review, and previous issues of Synkroniciti. In December, Kelsay Books released his fifth collection of poems entitled, The Beginning of Undoing.