Such a Sadness

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It's sad, America
on all fronts you've come undone
stubble-faced old man whose britches are falling off
zipper open and no one wants a peek

You stink of pee and shit, America
and it's all in your head
You're not that old—you
could shave, bathe, get the clothes cleaned

put on a good face and take the kids to the zoo
feed them and build them solar cars too
cleaner air and sign Kyoto
What's with the criminal crap? Why allow that?

Don't you care, America, that you're
about to croak? Land of the no longer free
land of the hugely new poverty
quaint archaic liberty

The classrooms of the doomed and
overworked filled with innocents who
didn't watch as revolutions came
and went-as you toppled governments

and now we're getting back just what
we dished—terrorism, massacres
It's elementary catechism that we
will reap just what we sow

We're crapping on ourselves, old man, when
we won't vote, when we refuse to
know the histories we're re-
creating on our shores

What's with that, America?