Oh, say can we see
It is my turn now
Sitting far from my homeland
Watching the shouting mobs
Burning breaking and killing
The lies competing for the highest rung
Of insanity oh they are so shocked
As if it sprang from nowhere
Somehow is from elsewhere
This is not our country they say
How so not?
Born bred and raised to hate
Following a Jesus I never met
And a constitution never written
Hugging a mythical freedom to rage and riot
At everyone else’s expense while
Seeking a war that will never slake this fury
Devouring life itself
While I watch the excuses
Pour from traitors’ lips
I see the tattoos on the arms
Of survivors I knew who told me
How it started
How it could have been stopped
But hey white boys will be white boys
You know what I mean
When you are so privileged
That nothing is denied to you
It is easy to twist trip turn be tricked
Falling prey to a nagging fear that everyone
Wants to strip you of what you take for granted
For all your bluff and bluster you
Suspect it is undeserved unearned unfulfilling
And only yours by theft
Yes, this is our country
Built on taking
Treachery and never enough
It runs in our veins and
Throttles our souls with
Mind bending weight only sated by
I can’t breathe
So long as it is another gasping
The science you would deny can tell you
That such deep sepsis can only be healed
By lancing the festering boils to drain
The wounds and expose them to the
Light
Air
Truth
We must learn and teach our children
The body politic requires
Every limb and organ
Left hand and right
Both eyes and ears
Every gender every age
Just as we cannot survive eating one plant alone
We must grow and be the entire forest field and stream
None is greater or lesser or useless
And plunder yields no sustenance
This we must know at last
It is my turn now to watch and wait
Wondering if my country
Will repeat history’s bitter lessons
Which our schools hollowed out by ignorance
Have ceased to teach
While furious white boys seeking darkness and death
Explode our legacy of infamy in plain sight
Oh, say what will we see
