America Lost

tattered-american-flag-1445282-640x480Like a chicken with its head
cut off, we keep running
around like it matters.
It’s time to lie down,
close the casket,
try not to pinch
our fingers.

Regardless of which corporations
made the axe or which politicians
wielded it, the head’s gone.
It’s not like we were using it anyway.

Generations of brain-damaged
high school jocks voting
against funding classrooms
certainly didn’t help.

Giving oil tycoons money
from the general fund
to burn the planet
certainly didn’t help.

Pretending corporations are people
that speak with dollars
instead of consume them
certainly didn’t help.

At least the gun nuts
haven’t killed us all
yet and we’ll soon be poor
enough that the wealthy
won’t consider us worth screwing.

If we’re lucky they’ll leave us alone
long enough that we can die
in bed instead of the gutter.

About Bartholomew Barker

Bartholomew Barker is one of the organizers of Living Poetry, a collection of poets and poetry lovers in the Triangle region of North Carolina. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
This entry was posted in Poetry and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to America Lost

  1. Morrow Dowdle says:

    Bleak, but edged with enough humor to make tolerable. And aptly stated.

    Like

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