America is the land
That without irony
Sells both the cigarette
And the nicotine patch.
It was late and the insomniac moon
Played cold music in my ears,
A seashell hum foot-tapping
To the beat of toss-turning dreams.
The night hangs low and shatters treetops
Like a brain bludgeoned against a wall,
Bone obliterated, thought incinerated,
Oozing toward the denuded earth,
And I resist.
Sleepless, restless, hopeless—yes.
Still I resist.
In Vietnam we set the jungle on fire,
The leaves and branches melting like wax,
Candles blown out by blind war
Snuffing out the celebration of life.
I am not a patriot.
I kneel when called to stand
And rise when told to sit still.
I have no respect for flags
And those who wave them.
I saw the rose bloom in thorns, her petals pierced
And bloody, her scent metallic, her countenance,
Once sanguine, sanguine no more, but pained,
Burned by the sun, depressed by the darkness
That since that horrid November had blotted
Out the moon until even the owls ceased to hoot.
I write from bed today:
Charlottesville bleeds, bloody hands
That keep hope at bay
With a smoldering gun and smoldering sands
That pierce the breast and burn the feet
Of those who from injustice ne’er retreat.
America was born mulatto, stillborn
But for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
Aphorisms written in blood with hands trembling,
Terrified of the dark engine that drove
America, how I thought I knew thee well!
Land of the West, of golden gleaming hope,
Of the People’s answer to Dante’s hell;
We who with freedom and slavery cope.
The fatal flaw is clear to those who look
(But o, we did not wish to look!):
To proclaim one thing but do another,
To promise riches and then plunder
The promise with a smile and a look