Public Speaking

I was chasing the skirt of Liberty on the history channel, in a class at Laney college out of curiosity - a class on Public Speaking

---

The shredded Magna Carta

blew across the

once prosperous

now smoldering

American Dream

while

Uncle Sam cannibalized

Lady Liberty,

grinning back with

bloodstained fingertips.

Children's toys crunched

under unwitting

solders soles upon the

promise land

Mothers' gardens ravaged

by savage

bayonets across the

manifest destiny.

The ruthless executioners

weld the scythe

forged from stainless steel

soiled with civilian sweat

And brothers,

once hopscotch friends,

Now deceived through blind believe

pour the gasoline

on our own crops

pillage the seeds

from our neighbors farms.

I have never imagined we'd

throw away the letters

and signatures signified

in a guarantee of freedom

for the indentured servants

from the imperialistic symbolic throne

so quickly (only after 200 years?)

Now the bond with

the leeching economic machines

is parasitic

and their venom sedates

even the cerebral intellectuals

Meanwhile, time stood still

As word artists

visual poets

sound sculptors

stood on soapboxes screaming truth

through the vice induced coma --

Wake up my love,

wake up.