Sydney Lewis Levin

For The Forgotten

For The Forgotten

Claim space, gracefully.
Disrupt.
Do not bow,
Do not be silent.

You, animal,
in mind forg'd manacles.

Profane existence
Not your own
But of
someone else.

Did you earn
Your right
To rights?
To life?

You, the being
In itself,
Not for itself.
Inanimate.

You say
"I am."
But you
are not.

Never in
your absurd world
Will you exist
As we do.

Expect recognition,
Grasp at freedom
You, the individual,
Ever forsaken.

You,
there!
Move.

Where is my place
When I am told
I do not exist?

You,
born to shame,
born in sin.

Collage poem

Newspaper collage poem on a crossword grid, made for a docupoetics class, 2026.

who is the sun?

A boy bundled in a red and blue winter hat
sits cross-legged
under the spotlight of
a lonely lamppost.
It’s an ungodly hour
for a roaming child,
yet he is soft and muted-
muttering to himself quietly.
Golden light shimmers around him
and transforms into an engulfing halo,
slowly swallowing him into the
safety of a shadowed society
available only to the individual,
achievable only in the dead of night.
Black sky squishes the boy,
sandwiching him between
pavement and oxygen.
A faint yelp escapes his lips as he
loses dimensionality and swirls
down through the sidewalk,
past the event horizon, and into himself. Only the spotlight remains, a
shining sun soon to be obliterated
by pesky death.

cows!

i can’t manage
all of the earth at once
so i bottle up the “less
important” parts
the cows
the bees
the flowers and trees
and put them behind     walls of anxiety
maybe if i forget that I’m a speck of dust then i’ll get
my essay done on time maybe if i forget the magic of life i’ll
be more normal     and then I’m driving         and I see those cows
again and suddenly I’m reminded of why I was put here in the first
place   I’m swept away     by the wind floating on a flowered       dandelion
surveying the world from a cloud     i see         the expanse of the universe
stars and galaxies   of dust become a sparkle in the dark eye of a sweet
spotted cow   who only knows      grazing and laying


i wish
i were that       cow
so innocent
lovely and kind

Expand

Expand

                hills
            run up        to
     The urge to                conquer

To gaze with                                   Tend to
    awe and feel                      our souls with
        it all                    natural beauty

Watch                                          Begin
    the                                          to
       frost                                 thaw
                  The mind,
                  a garden

Trimmed with love                    But still leaves wilt

        And                           A
     winter                          rocky
 comes                                    outcrop

         Lakes                      A forest of
     below                         eternal glow

               We overlook
               the world

We                                       The trees
   scampered                                  and
       past                             boulders


       I’ll remember          when I’m older

         All the times      I didn’t

               want to

                 go

are we forever?

I see I stand I
watch I
observe my legs
begin to tire I
fall into the earth
my body
separates from the light
in my mind
I rest on the grass
tickles and stabs the
forested hairs across my body
readjusts and sinks
deeper into the ground it swallows me whole it swallows my spirit it swallows me it eats
my soul
I am
I was
I was the earth
I am no more
i have fallen too far
i dissolve
spaghettified
i welcome eternal darkness

imagine

broken branches
the corpse of 
a being who watched
Silently

who endured 
through movements
through war
through protests
through change

fall leaves fall 
squirrels scamper around
never catch, only chase

The soil bolstering
our old friend
cements the corpse in place
the zeitgeist blew across time
like topsoil escaping with the wind

the spring is gone
wilted flowers aren’t
warm enough
whispering wind
will bring winter soon

the boulder’s colors
transformed again
another message from
a different world
emerging from conditions
that watered and nourished 
constant revolution

there is
new life to come
an acorn dropped today

i kick it softly
who knows where it will end up
traveling unnaturally 
from the tree 
who dropped it
not on purpose
it was time to leave

soft

My soul
is a tiny dancer
in the pit of my stomach,
spinning and frolicking in place,
surrounded by a sea of red energy.
A little being,
small and sweet and loving
grounding me
and keeping me stable,
connected to all parts of my body,
always present
but never controlling.
It smiles kindly at my mistakes
and softly encourages my passions,
a consistent figure in my life
that i am rarely aware of.
My soul is a gateway
inward and outward
to the energetic universe
and the love all around me.
It never dictates my life
but ensures that i don’t stray too far
from the river i am flowing down.
My soul is love.

Moral

Forging a path through a thick forest,
A young man stops for a moment.
He rests on a fallen tree trunk,
Unaware of the teeming life
Under his buttocks.
He sits complacently,
Smugly regarding his surroundings.
The boy’s whole world resides in his head,
So naturally leaves and roots
Are of no concern to him.
These evolutionary wonders
Exist solely for his amusement.
The wind rustles and sunlight breaks
Through a barrier of branches,
Finding its way to the young man’s face.
He sweats, and becomes uncomfortable
In an objectively beautiful environment.
A ladybug darts past his nose,
Startling him into falling backwards.
He lands with a soft thud,
And a sharp sapling splits his skin.
The boy bleeds out,
laying on a bed of moss and dirt,
Accompanied only by tiny bugs and birds.

new earth

I pick up a rock and I look at it.
I don’t ask what it is-
I just look,
I just see.
A window into the soul:
A flower that sets me free.

when i see a beautiful thing
i want to change it,
to make it my own,
but that’s not the point of love.