American,
say it with a swagger
& with confidence;
like we own the name
somehow more than the
Canadians & Mexicans,
& all those other Americans
south of Panama
but say it with force
& the assurance
that all those other Americas
don’t really matter,
because they are not really
as American as we are;
they lack that insular arrogance,
fed past gluttony to a place
beyond fatness & complacency–
if the west were open to be won today
we couldn’t do it
because it would take too much effort
& we would have to move away
from the computers
& television screens
& actually do something
besides politicking,
like shoot dinner, or feed it,
or plant it
or even teach
our children to read
ourselves
& not blame a teacher
when it doesn’t happen
fast enough.
How nice
to have strong bodies
whose minds
are wasting away.
****this poem is not anti-American–it is anti-the-America I am seeing in politics, on the news, and in the social media.
I like this one lots…
Thank you, Nelle. Again, with politics, I have a tendency to clobber rather than sing….
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you have got a witness! speak, gurl!
Thank you, Ann!