Reading
Out to Lunch
by M. L. Geyer, (c) 2003
Old Ship Church, Hingham, MA
(This poem may be reproduced freely, exactly as written and with copyright intact in reproduced copies.)
While we were out to lunch
A cabal stole our democracy
With new laws, with hog-tying Congress,
With other sins too numerous to enumerate.
Manipulating color-coded fear,
They turned us fearsome
And despised among the nations.
Are "they" us?
Could we have fallen for bait to hate,
Were it not to our majority's taste?
The brown-skinned "demon" made a target
So easy, it's interchangeable in person:
Osama, upstart prophet/planner of revenge from afar,
Sadam, brutal dictator, standard brand,
Former friend of "Let's you and him fight".
Elsewhere Sharon and Bush conflated,
The white-skinned "demon", whose arrogant conquests harmonize.
Osama having slithered under a rock,
We've been sold alternate targets for hate
To distract from thefts of domestic well being.
Now we rally round a flag of war
Raised by our Great Leader,
Paralyzed by patriotism.
Lord, help thou mine unbelief.
Emperors rule empires, everyone knows.
That pyramid of individual self-seeking
Enabled transformation of office when the rot was ripe.
Though history's littered with empires defeated,
I don't know,
New technology might trump history.
Global death, one way or another --
Energy's accumulated poison's or precipitous nuclear night --
Look like results of imperious, greedy
Going it alone.
Shall this playground for billions of lives,
Life after tender new life,
Be wrenched from habitable future?
Attention, fellow citizens!
The log in our eyes unfits us
To operate on our brother's vision.
Let us then return,
Repenting our "War on Terror" run amok,
To shelter under the wings
Of our strong, wise, balanced Constitution,
Reverse catastrophe's creeping crimes
Here, there, anywhere.
We've been out to lunch, friends.
Take courage.
Take back the day.
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