America Compromised

Marc Sussman / April 2008

 

America has been compromised

And you will not be able to just “live here”, log on, tune out, zone out on the 5:45 express, because America has been compromised

 

Never again will you see the Bushes, blowing bugles, leading the charge for black gold

There will be no film at 11 of George in his flight suit that he had been saving for just the proper occasion

 

Our children will not shop amid the rubble of the towers

 

American history will not be portrayed by Angelina Jolie, walking the red carpet in her latest Vera Wang 

Not when America has been compromised

We’ll  realize that things don’t go better with Coke

We will not “JUST DO IT.”

We’ve come a long way baby, but we won’t walk a mile for a Camel, and this is not Marlboro Country

GE will not “bring good things to light”

for a New America in 4 parts without commercial interruptions

There was no Tiger in our tank, just a hand in our pocket We won’t need 57 varieties, or 31 flavors  and it won’t be finger lickin’ good to the last drop snap crackle and pop - only puffed cereal will be shot from guns

 

The American Idle won’t care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow Not when there are floating bodies, raging fires, fallen heroes

Not when Mother Earth has been compromised. There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news, with pictures of squirrelly little pencil pushers, shuffling and scribbling our economic eulogy America will rise again, this time arm in arm with the rest of humanity

And in the end, we will ask the poets to rewrite our National Anthem, without the rockets red glare

Or we might just sing America the Beautiful, as loud and as long as we must, until we are America the Beautiful   

 

We will be all that we can be