Pax Americana: AD 2016
We had said
Oh, baby, I want to feel you close,
Oh sweetie, give some life to this ghost.
It was a time when we gained hormones and lost friends.
You can choose to run with the ones who had not
Waited for you when you tied your shoes.
Now we say,
Oh, [Your Name], tell me something nice
Like you’re enough or even
You dress well.
We became our own worst enemy while U.S. citizens
Had done the same.
Liberals take to the streets, don darts feathered
With “soft” and “radical” and
Stand for something bigger than themselves;
Conservatives sit on what they believe to be and
What they appropriate as their history,
And call that standing for something.
History is not still.
Every fact is an idea and every idea consists of
Opinion, a human-made substance like skin cells--
Cells can take on many colors but they become
The same grey upon death, upon creation.
Therefore, you can kill ideas as there are always
New generations of lives (cell-containers)
To support them.
That support is a tradition whose elements change each year.
Often each minute builds upon an idea until it either
Builds muscle and becomes a fact
Or until the seconds eat it up like cancer
-- It becomes a tragedy that only the witnesses recording
See as fact; it becomes a hashtag; it becomes a vigilant vigil
Whose attendants fear other, brighter, faster lights.
We learned about our identities at the same time we learned that
It is dangerous to be black in America.
We try to renounce the fact, but a fat man cannot vilify
Unhealthy lifestyles.
We cannot deplore deforestation but still live in
This government’s cookie-cutter homes.
We cannot hate the players if each cell plays a different game
On the same board, the same field.
We cannot fear ignorance, lament school shootings, and
At the same time forgo homeschooling and gun control.
But the government can and does.
This government makes the youth yearn for Canada.
Sam has replaced his baggy, striped trousers with a
Two-piece suit. The blood of the working class oils his heavy
Joints and its marrow polishes his patent leather shoes.
And yes, he wears Prada.
You couldn’t afford to be ignorant in childhood; much less can
You afford to be as bitter as adults.
There was a time when “being informed” meant watching
One of the three news channels of unfiltered soup
That the government serves.
It cannot keep the outside world a “behind the scenes.”
It could record hundreds of people crashing, burning, falling
From 8:46 to 10:28 yet it cannot bear to expose to the world
An innocent suspect-- a black man in America-- being executed by police.
Est ubi plebs rectè putat, est ubi peccat
(There are times when the people think rightly and times when they err).
Some thoughts speak louder than others, but that does not
Imply that they are more correct.
Every vote count-- it is as old as steam.
Yet the government allows the plebs to only consume their few
News channels and lotteries
But prevent them from entering the polling location.
They used to cast their votes from the rooftops.
Many options may hurt but nothing hurts
More than having only one and being able
To carry out the one.
Politicians call the general outrage ad hominem arguments but
Do not realize that the plebs attack the general system.
The system is not so much an idea--
A fabric made of people--
But a reality.
Therefore, the system cannot get its feelings hurt or
Demand “proof?” since Sam has always decided
What is fact or not.
The plebs tug on Sam’s ankles but do not expect money only
To shake down from his pockets.
They the people want to harry him til their pile rises
Up to his legs like quick sand.
Alas, his bullets and censors, as hot as the press which they suppress,
Stop the plebs before they even reach Sam’s ankles.
Oh, the people.
The government killed hope the moment they’ve decided
liberty was French and blind.
She is no sightless Cupid who causes calculated mischief.
She is the one who sees color and still punishes the
Black man in America for killing the white and vice versa.
She is the reason the hospitals are painted blue.
She is the one who makes negative Nancys late to
Their policy-changing board meetings with traffic jams.
She sits next to the homeless man and not only
Slips a food stamp but a sentence and page of advice
Into his hand.
But every fourth November brings fresh pains.
Sam does away with Liberty like any courtesan.
Celebrities become presidents.
The beams and rafters of the counter reduce to
Termites and rats.
The rich fatten and the poor hunger for their flesh.
Oh, Manhattoes
Oh, America.
2017 AD
