Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Oh My People

What have you done? Where have you fled? Into such fear, into bombastic lies and flag draped emptiness? Wars rage in your name, but you want no words about them. The poor wander your streets in larger and larger numbers, but you shout in the promise of bigger and bigger business, what have you done? Did Obama prove so frightening to you, with his cool voice and almost weary need to do something to make things more equal, did his name so foolishly frighten you, the color of his skin, you are invoked now over and over, I can hear in the background on this most lonely of nights here, the voices, triumphant repeating over and over, the American people, the American people--this is what you want--a young man from Florida who is haunted by his own Caribbean history says over and over, America is the greatest country in the world, and you repeat in unison USAUSAUSA. Oh I am afraid you will get what you want--an America isolated in its own self love, its own crazy mirror images of The Greatest while on your own lands, people not part of this  day of glory for the individual beg in your streets, sleep once again under the bridges and the rest of the world glides away into the real future where difference and brilliance and cooperation look into new heavens.
You will have your victory, the tea party with its red and white and blue little cakes of now we will be safe again, now we will be America again, now we will let every one fend for themselves again and sipping carefully from the their cups, they smile with self appreciation and do not see the people swept by in the waters, a future of ideas filled with promise drowning in the smallness of their thirst.


Oh I am lonely tonight. In a far away place from where my days had their beginning. Oh I am lonely tonight, with my little black dog sleeping curled up at my feet. Perhaps I am the one who has lost the world.

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