It was a good idea once
inalienable rights and the abolition
of tyranny but
we’ve mucked it up, this great
American Experiment
our own inbred aristocracy madder
than noon-baked Englishmen with
crimes and usurpations running amok,
torn bodies and new hatreds in every
casbah tentacles
in every pocket and a
knife at every throat
and we wage slave
descendants of the free
the not so free
sinking in the refuse of yesterday’s bargains
punch clocked and jackbooting our way
to the fossil record at the speed of credit
with no payments ’till January —
a toxic spoor of ruined
places, broken lives and gulags.
We had a bad run but it’s time
to come clean,
to admit our failure to
examine the bloody Manifest
of our imagined Destiny.
Time to Repent
for mass graves and wars of false premise,
for all those dictators, our murky turkeys lurking
in every hot satrapy with trained goons keeping
bloody order and a quota of disappeared.
Time to admit
it was all a mistake
made in the bravado of our youth and
rejoin the Commonwealth
Stop seeing stars and turn in our
bloody stripes
be British again
take tea and healthcare claim
our place lordless
in the house of commons where
Empire is only a memory
best forgotten.
July 4, 2021 @ 9:38 am
Undeclaration
It was a good idea once
inalienable rights and the abolition
of tyranny but
we’ve mucked it up, this great
American Experiment
our own inbred aristocracy madder
than noon-baked Englishmen with
crimes and usurpations running amok,
torn bodies and new hatreds in every
casbah tentacles
in every pocket and a
knife at every throat
and we wage slave
descendants of the free
the not so free
sinking in the refuse of yesterday’s bargains
punch clocked and jackbooting our way
to the fossil record at the speed of credit
with no payments ’till January —
a toxic spoor of ruined
places, broken lives and gulags.
We had a bad run but it’s time
to come clean,
to admit our failure to
examine the bloody Manifest
of our imagined Destiny.
Time to Repent
for mass graves and wars of false premise,
for all those dictators, our murky turkeys lurking
in every hot satrapy with trained goons keeping
bloody order and a quota of disappeared.
Time to admit
it was all a mistake
made in the bravado of our youth and
rejoin the Commonwealth
Stop seeing stars and turn in our
bloody stripes
be British again
take tea and healthcare claim
our place lordless
in the house of commons where
Empire is only a memory
best forgotten.
— Al Markowitz