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Jan 20
poem 2 comments challenge: Inauguration
AmbientGravity

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. 
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Posted: 01.20.21
About the Author: AmbientGravity
I don't want to wake up smiling at cereal.
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  • So when reading this, some

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  1. AmbientGravity
    Jan 20, 2021

    So when reading this, some people have had slight misconceptions, I want to point out the date it was written, this was written in reference to the pain wrought by the 45th president and the hypocrisy that the 46th may solve it all by tomorrow but nevertheless there is hope.

    I don't want to wake up smiling at cereal.

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  1. TheSilentPoet
    Jan 20, 2021

    I love this poem! It makes me think of the stories told by the bards of old! So many long, harmonious words strung together to create somthing beautiful!

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