God bless America – the rotted dream

Appalled by wars that know no pause,
The People plead – a muted voice.
Their speech attracts a mute applause.
Enigma marks the People’s choice.

The Stars and Stripes; Thanksgiving Day;
July the Fourth; the Penthouse Suite –
The powers that be administrate
A policy of trick or treat.

No treaties tie this errant State
Save those it chooses to embrace.
Some nations favour it with hate;
Some nations with amazing grace.

Its soldiers march with endless tread
The lands it seeks to liberate
And pour the sand with bootless blood
And leave in body-bags of hate.

In grief, the Population waits
In half-crazed attitudes of stone
To welcome home the flag-draped crates
That line the battle-shattered bone.

Abroad, afar, a distant drum
Cajoles with dead hypnotic dirge
The blind, the lame, the halt to come
To turn the hand that wields the scourge.

America! America!
O land of freedom, land of hope!
No Statue speaks of Liberty
That squats behind a sniper’s scope.

Corrupt, the faith; in chains, the free!
The holy Dollar cows all bids.
Their Creed, a sterile poetry!
Their Nation’s God abusing kids!

Stone walls do not a prison make.
The Watchman waits the watch he keeps.
And where God’s not, He lies awake.
And where He is, alone God sleeps.

To write these lines in epic verse
Requires a void of human art.
God bless America – or curse! –
With sacred hand on wasted heart.