Who among us will be the last,
The soul heir of America’s love; too cruel
Are the stories of torture, too horrific the claims
On the belligerent sky of her apparent approval.
More than patriotic impulse and flag waving refute,
More than we might dance `round or put forward
Is now laid bare, loud, terribly felt... in this
persecution’s lament.
Who will be sole heir of America’s love; countryman,
Inheritor of this warmongering, depleted union,
As child devotedly, unashamedly, loving the violent
Parent, as animal bred for death might cuddle up
`gainst his captor enabling the torturer illegitimate
Peer of the realm. Who will claim right over wrong,
The torturer over the victim; of virtue,
We should have wanted to change her from birth.
I will not be the last, the last to love her,
America. Patriots whose reasons for loving her
Have run dry, you’re swilling the fervent sap
Of dread, you know not of her bleeding.
Exit this, your defiance of truth, your sightless
Strategy to deny, to lay explosives `round contempt
Of true righteousness and forever sow the corpse
Strewn path of might; begin again America. Again.
