WHAT AMERICA HAS LEFT

Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society

But pride puts the nail in the coffin

That's all America has left

You can tell

Dying nations, dying civilizations accumulate laws like racks

To keep its citizens constrictred by their pride

To prevent them from realizing who rules over them

and what they've truly lost

All America has left is pride

In blackness, in whiteness,

in gayness, in grayness, in theory

That's all it amounts to nowadays

Singing the National Anthem in a Walmart

Built like a run-down strip mall

Holding up flags, red, blue, white, false, or not

and Star-Spangled banners where the glitter and glue

slides right off

America can't agreed on a unified culture, on unified values.

America can't be at peace with itself

America spies on itself, and everyone else

Because it doesn't trust itself

The paranoia and incessant need for control is palpable.

The American regime is committed to war and profit everywhere else

When America is done

Clinging onto its last breaths

We're almost at that point

All it's patriots can claim to bleed for is pride

But pride decays into vanity

Pride diminishes into a misplaced reverence of what was once was.

Don't tread on me

Their pride shields us from any competition, or engaging with it.

Our ego might take a bruising

Well, it might indeed need a reality check.

Americans right now might as well be snakes, chopped up into puzzle pieces

Pieces of meat to be fed to the dogs

Other countries may not be as rich, or maintain a dynamic economy.

Maybe the furthest thing from a superpower

But they stand for more than just pride

They pound their fist to the glass ceiling in the skies

Thunder crackles

a mosaic of battle cries, stories from the great wars past, national anthems and a unprocessed, GMO-free, naturally curated selection

of cuisine to top things off appears

History is told, shared, reveled in that has'nt been redundantly rehashed.

An old man with semi-blackened cigarette buds for fingers

can pick up a classical guitar

and pour out the soul of his nation and all that it stands for into a cup.

A cup that runneth over and leaketh plenty of fruit

That old man takes midday strolls, and then after-lunch naps

by the tree of liberty

A "Not For Sale" sign is firmly planted upfront

If the call is made, at a abrupt minute's notice

That old man still has power, still has the will

Just lost some inches in posture and grip strength.

That tree might need some watering

You can't water that tree with pride, or guns that are only for show.