Listen, America

Your broad stripes,
your bright stars–
surely you see
how they flag
in the scumbled air.

Your bitter quarrels,
your burning hills,
the nodding amber grains–

They wail, Wake up!
But your swaddling flags
muffle their pleas.

Lies everywhere sharpen tongues
and shade the truth.

Your boots on the neck of decency,
as people coagulate in the streets–

Are you listening? Listen!

I don’t want to watch people die
under the weight of your fears.

One way or another,
right and left,
bright stars or broad stripes,
the wages of poverty
and its father greed
mound to an avalanche of spite.

It cleaves the heartland.

Your tired broken books
and sacred papers lay silent.
Pages riffling, they wave goodbye. 

Your furious rainwater
swells to bursting. We watch
as whole towns tumble away
in baptisms of rubble.
Flames rifle your valleys.

And your broad stripes,
your bright stars?
See how they flag
in the thickening air!

America, listen!
You’re running scared, America.
Who is your master, America?

What burns on your horizons?
What rough beast
slouches at your center?