Citizens lock themselves in cells of their own,
snug in the palm of the hand,
Many on the friend and family plan,
many armed to the teeth,
But all sitting ducks to snipers in trees,
and cowards who speed by in cars.
Such is the scene the day before
the next un-civil war in America,
The land where rat-a-tat-tat, ka-ching, and ka-boom
are dumb Algo Rhythm’s favorite tunes.
Said the good gray poet, in the 1860s,
to the dead of our South and our North:
Leave me your pulses of rage – bequeath
them to me – fill me with currents convulsive,
Let them scorch and blister out of my chants
when you are gone,
Let them identify you to the future in these songs.
Dave Read
Quoted is Whitman’s “Spirit Whose Work is Done,” available at the Walt Whitman Archive.