American Crossroads

For nothing now can ever come to any good,
now that justice is dead, swept from the stage
of this farce we call America, where manhood
is white and carries a gun fired in rage,

where guilt is washed away by milky tears
sucked from the teats of youthful privilege
asserting manufactured fears, met by jury’s cheers.
Once thought land of justice and freedom, now sacrilege,

without respect for life except one’s own.
Asked to bow to the vigilante in despair,
transformed into another MAGA-spewing drone,
do we dare act instead with compassion and care?

For goodness has not left if it lives in our heart.
What to this world around us do we truly wish to impart?

 

Note: The first line of this poem (italicized above) is the final line of the poem “Funeral Blues” by WH Auden.

©2021 Kenneth W. Arthur