get your house in order
your things in order
your lies and loves in order
the end is nearly too near to ignore
we come so far, fight so hard
and still
what is left?

what is left is a rotten dream
that belongs in the past
a dream that no one has owned
for generations now
but we’re too afraid, too stricken to say
that no one wants our parents’ parents’ wants
what is left is a Frankenstein of a country-
a nation so gnarled and scarred
it is barely recognizable
as being created in
a free democratic image,
a re-creation so afraid of being burned
that it reacts violently
to the mere idea
of coming under fire

and still
we put up
shut up
and lock and load
bring home boatloads of black boxes
filled with the corpses of could-have-beens
tuck our valiant patriotic
flag- and country-loving
sons and daughters to sleep
through eternally wakeless nights
in the dirt of this land of lost promises
because the decision making machine
of false democracy
is nowhere near to closing the war factory