Texas Secession

Laurence Musgrove Laurence Musgrove

The Nation-State Is a Human Construct

Chris Ellery

March 2, 2025


“All new states are invested, more or less, by a class of noisy, second-rate men who are always in favor of rash and extreme measures, but Texas was absolutely overrun by such men.” 

Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas


The shrimp in the pools of Enchanted Rock

have never heard of the social contract.

The mystic granite, eons underground, 

did not rise to lobby for the rights of man.


What we call Texas never was or will be Texas.


The grackle atop the Capitol flagpole

would never kill or die for a lonely star. 

Arroyo and aquifer, river and gulf, 

desert and canyon, mesquite and pine.


What we call Texas never was or will be Texas.


Men come with dreams and prejudice.

Men come with eager violence.

Men come with zeal-sharpened pride. 

Men come blind to the common good. 


What we call Texas never was or will be Texas.


Tell monarch and rattler they belong to a state.

Tell hawk and eagle they can’t cross a line. 

Tell wind and sunlight, snow and rain.

Tell every dewdrop. Tell twister. Tell hurricane.


What we call ours never was or will be ours.




Chris Ellery is a native Texan and long-time resident of San Angelo. His most recent collection of poems is One Like Silence, which explores the causes of division in society and offers a vision of radical oneness based on perennial philosophy. 

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Laurence Musgrove Laurence Musgrove

Should

Thomas Hemminger

March 2, 2025

“Should Texas Secede?” 


Never was a question so close

to being All hat, and no cattle.


Yet, a closer look might yield 

a different set of answers altogether. 


“Should Texas secede?”


Yes. Probably so…


from arrogance, vanity, 

and pride;


from needs-blindness, irresponsibility, 

and indifference;


from artlessness, inauthenticity, 

and cynicism. 


Yes. Probably so.


Texas should secede. 



Thomas Hemminger is an elementary music teacher living in Dallas, Texas. His work has been published locally in Dallas and in The Wilda Morris Poetry Challenge, The Texas Poetry Assignment, and The Poetry Catalog. His hero is Mr. Fred Rogers, the creator of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Through America’s favorite “neighbor,” Thomas learned the importance of loving others and giving them their own space and grace to grow.

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Laurence Musgrove Laurence Musgrove

At the Senate Hearing 

Milton Jordan

March 2, 2025


His double-cab, extended-bed Silverado 

covered two parking slots with its chrome alloy 

bumper beneath the TXFRVR 

vanity plate edging into a third 

displaying a Lone Star Flag-style sticker 

with a one-word message, SECEDE.


The driver and his one passenger climbed down

to the street, claimed briefcases from the rear seat,

crossed Lavaca, and entered the Capitol

through the Legislators and Staff Only gate,

on the pass of District Five’s Senator,  

to testify for his Right of Return Act,

numbered SB 1836

by special Senate permission.


Holding place one on the hearing list 

the Silverado driver proudly informed 

the panel of his native-born bona fides,

large acre ranch ownership and testified:

“Our great state surrendered none of its rights

as a nation,’ he said ‘upon joining 

the union of other states, including

the right of return to national status.”


After the bill’s sponsor and his side man

tossed the witness a few soft questions,

the ranking minority member asked,

“Will you continue to cash your Coast Guard

pension and Social Security checks

and file for USDA farm subsidies?”

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.

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Laurence Musgrove Laurence Musgrove

Thoughts on a Successful Secession

Alan Berecka

March 2, 2025


Down here in south Texas just off the coast 

of the Gulf of America, it’s not hard

to see and hear that this place was once 

somewhere else. I once asked a good friend

with a thick Spanish accent when his kin

came to this country; he half-laughed, 

half-sneered his answer, told me his 

people never moved, the border did. 

The scales fell from my eyes, my ears

turned red, and the wax melted away.


A few years back, some crazy men 

in the Davis Mountains tried to reclaim 

the Republic of Texas; it did not end well

for them, but as it seems now, like all things

once considered on the fringe, the idea

of secession has become mainstream.


And I’m thinking maybe these cranks 

are on to something, but for me

they aren’t going back far enough.

After all, now that we have combines

and don’t need slaves to pick cotton,

I’m wondering if we could just forget 

the Alamo, like we have the massacre

at La Bahia, and go back to being

the Maine of Mexico. Hey, I know

the place has some problems,

but look at the messes it would solve.


We could tear down that wall and save

the jaguarundi. The border problem 

would become Oklahoma’s and Windstar

is large enough to detain a gazillion refugees.

Meanwhile, back in Tejas, we’d all get 

affordable public health care, we could relax 

about which books are read in our libraries, 

and reteach the truth in our history classes.

But best of all we’d all get an enlightened, 

empathetic woman of color for our president.


Alan Berecka resides with his wife Alice and an ornery rescue dog named Ophelia in Sinton, Texas  He retired in January from being a librarian at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi and is settling into a whole new level of contentment. His poetry has appeared in such places as the American Literary Review, Texas Review, and The San Antonio Express. He has authored three chapbooks, and six full collections, the latest of which is Atlas Sighs from Turning Plow Press, 2024. A Living is not a Life: A Working Title (Black Spruce Press, Brooklyn, 2021) was a finalist in the Hoffer Awards. From 2017 to 2019 he served as the first poet laureate of Corpus Christi.

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Laurence Musgrove Laurence Musgrove

A Poem that Had Hoped to Remain Decidedly Metaphorical but Couldn’t Help Its Political Veer

 Jim LaVilla-Havelin

March 2, 2025



On the thirtieth anniversary of my coming to live

in Texas, I am contemplating what

secession would mean -


The trees outside my window, the birds I just filled the feeder for,

the cholla, the agave and the pencil cactus  - for all their hither 

          and yon growth - could give a damn.

In fact, the mesquites just bend in the wind and even 

          when they break, fall - they find a way to

           dig back into this hardscrabble earth

           and live.

They do not break away.


No, this is not 

the breakaway republic, not now at least -

nestled gently in the big wings

             of the new amerikkan 

             tyranny.


I’m sending all my friends the link to 

Thoreau’s “On Civil Disobedience”


Secession is a personal stance, and it doesn’t mean

disengagement.

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of six books of poetry. His most recent, Tales from the Breakaway Republic, a chapbook, was published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, in May 2022. LaVilla-Havelin is the Coordinator for National Poetry Month in San Antonio.

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