Time Played a Trick On My Good Friend William

11/04/2020 2:31 a.m The Shadow comes lurching across the plains

Where has your America gone Walt Whitman?
What rough beast slouches now towards our capital?
Dragging the cursed dregs of society in his cacophonous wake,
Slogging waste deep through the mires of deceit.

What penance comes rapping now on our midnight door?
A reckoning has come to be sure
Two savages now, grapple in the widening gyre.
A victorless battle fought by its victims

Visions fill my mind, dancing specters of what could have been.
A choir of varied harmonies sings in my ears,
When did the melody collapse?
When did this war begin?

A specter of biblical proportions.
Here comes the beast crowned by the people,
Who flung that gilded door open for him?
A realization comes in with the dawn.

America, pay no attention to the bloodstains on my hands for they belong to all of us,
I did not open the door but sure as fate I held the key
But for now the clouds roll in blanketing the horizon in a deep red  

Five days later, hope comes in
Riding the white wings of democracy
A golden chariot leading into the harsh,
Blinding light of the morning sun
A creature newly crowned revels, hidden by the glow.  

But alas, morning has come and despite it all the horizon fills with light. 

AmbientGravity

NH

YWP Alumni