Lament for a Divided Land

(I began writing this poem after the U.S. election in 2016. It has undergone countless revisions and updates ever since. Recently, I considered posting it here on Substack, then decided against it. Yet now, after a heartless and soulless Republican Senate passed the shameful “big, beautiful bill” today, with the assistance of an accommodating vice president, I decided to post the poem after all.)

I

A land once united in name
is now broken in spirit and purpose —
the thunder of dissonance rumbles ever louder
harmonizing with the daily bedlam
driving us deeper into despair while
those who never knew or forgot the
current schism’s birth decades ago with its
subterfuge and a quiver of dirty tricks
and constant drone of disinformation.

Truth is
it’s systemic and always has been this way
from the very beginning —
the dichotomy between the masses
and the wealthy, powerful elite,
pitting the haves against the have-nots —
them and us.

They
declared their independence
from a mighty empire and later penned
a constitution to forge this nation —
more for them than for us
since only they could vote at the time
while those founders who were slaveholders
ignored their own glaring duplicity.

They
furthered the divide by separating us
into subsets of class, embedding
inequality by origin and race
so that one class would feel superior
to the others — creating
divisions within divisions
fears within fears
hatreds within hatreds.

II

They
then pursued the fruits of war
and waged it overtly and covertly
to displace indigenous tribes at home
and to press nations abroad
winning more influence and power
as they reaped untold booty —
first raw materials and goods
then oil — almighty oil
forever feeding hegemony
and profiteering —
with no end to their unquenchable thirst
for still more wealth and power, and, if needed
dispatched troops to seal the deal.

III

The irony is it’s us and our offspring
who’ve served and serve as sacrificial sheep
killed, wounded, and missing in the unending
parade of wars and proxy wars worldwide —
called to serve as perpetual cannon fodder
not always in our interests —
of we the people.

IV

They
continue to sanitize history
with misinformation with more spin
often more myth than fact —
intentionally omitting
uncomfortable truths of that history
not found in their books
not mentioned in classrooms
not discussed at dinner tables
not known by enough of us
to understand what actually happened.

Witness how history ignores or downplays
how the governing elite cheated
indigenous peoples and broke treaties
with them and then sent mounted troops who
hunted and massacred them to aid
the theft of sacred, tribal lands because
they deemed those people savages.

Witness also their cursory treatment
of the enslavement, trade, and murder of Blacks —
later emancipated yet still oppressed
railroaded
whipped
lynched
segregated
to the other side
of town and the tracks
for the color of their skin.

They
increased their influence and control
first over print and then broadcast media —
distorting events of the past and present
to sell us a mythology without
exposing the stains of their injustice
and their complicity in suppressing
the truth, pinning the blame on the victims.

V

They
launched the coup of coups, collaborating
as a cabal of wealthy, influential
powerful insiders to install their
chosen one — a corrupt demagogue
into the land’s highest office
excusing his moral bankruptcy,
his boundless lust for money and power,
his malignant narcissism
his racism
his xenophobia
his thirst for vengeance
his disdain for the rule of law
and the Constitution —
forever nudging democracy
into an autocracy of soulless
billionaires who play the quid pro quo card
and devise new ploys and lies without end.

They
since succeeded in buying the highest court
to undo the many humane reforms
enacted over decades of progress
and now separate desperate families
who seek refuge and better lives
choosing to arrest, imprison, deport them
and worse because they refuse to grant them
Christian charity and refuge preached in
their Gospels, preferring to define and
write them off as illegal.

They
justify such injustices as lawful
cheered on by a gullible mob that views
itself as Bible-true Christians
as well as die-hard patriots.
continue to stoke the toxic divide
with infinite distractions and deceptions —
preaching jingoism to their faithful
loyalists, laden with lies and hollow rhetoric
emblazoned on baseball caps and t-shirts.

They
now have launched another cruel assault
after passing their “Big Beautiful Bill”
which strikes another devastating blow
to the fragile social safety net which
will affect millions of people in need
while adding trillions to the nation’s debt
but award another tax cut to those
who neither need nor deserve such a gift.

Epilogue

We cannot ignore the harsh irony —
it’s us who are also culpable

We who knew better and were too complacent
we who remained silent too long and watched
we who failed to speak out, protest, and act
we who without wealth and power failed to stem
the raging madness and its drama which
plays on as endless tragedy.

Is it now too late to close the chasm
and rescue what’s left of democracy?

The Statue of Liberty stands silent and mourns
while immigrants who came to fulfill dreams
are refused and deported — unwanted.