America the Ugly

Spacious skies
once so beautiful
now soot-stained
filled with fumes
molecular soup
brewed in a cauldron
too globally warm
chemical change

a nation turns its
reddened eyes from you
Tears flow
from those eyes
as air once clean
becomes clean only
by act of a government
that has lost the meaning
of words bathed
in the acid of corruption
so that the nation
loses its purpose
and our way

America, Amerika
Amber waves the grain.
I’m just not sure
what’s saying
goodbye.

Probably it’s both.

Purple mountains
or any color
once majestic
now leveled
rock crushed
for oil
or hollowed out
emptied of coal
except where it burns
or blown apart
in the search
for fancy rocks

The weapon
that destroys the mass
is fueled by the lives
of men too poor
badly educated and so ill-treated
lubricated by the greased palms
of partisan self-interest
and naked incivility
of so-called servants
and dangerously driven
by the avarice
of men too rich

At the edge
of forests healthy
for everything
but animals or trees
lie the fruited plains
blistered with toxins
alchemically nurtured
in a liquid
roughly water
strange brew
what’s inside of you

We are fashioned
into laboratory mice
to ascertain
how much poison
we can consume
and remain vaguely human
while we are forced
to pay exorbitant fees
for what passes
as our health

I do not set aside
the grace of God,
for if righteousness
could be gained
through the law,
Christ died for nothing!”

–Gal 2:21

God sheds grace on us?
The shedding of grace
has a human face
We are graced with hunger
to measure our sense of charity
We are graced with poverty,
to challenge us
to solve economic
inequity and despair
We are graced with pestilence
but also graced
with the scientific curiosity
necessary for us
to defeat disease

We have spurned
the grace of God

They lack a sense
of brotherhood
toward so many kinds of people
for union members
for whom it has
special meaning
for immigrants of any kind
legality be damned
for those whose roots
weren’t cultivated
in the appropriate loam
kinship even denied
with their own children
if they happen to be queer
no empathy felt
for those whose skin tones
haven’t been created
recently enough
by lounging in the sun
nor sympathy for people
whose cupboards are too bare
from one day to the next