The Downward Spiral Called the United States

I sit and watch the downward spiral

called the United States

from my safe Taiwanese home,

but a radical at heart I remain

and do what I can to educate

wayward sheep flocking themselves

with condemnations of  violent revolt.

there are no criminals in an uprising;

only downtrodden victims of the system

 

if anything good can come out of the racism

of the botched U.S. response to corona

 it is my son living on the streets of L.A.

who wisely transported to his Pittsburgh sisters

where he can stay and get attention

and credentials before the next step in life

like all the other stay-home quarantined

with time to reassess their dreams

that is what the meltdown means

 

a curfew in D.C. on June first at ten o’clock

Saw thousands of young people on the streets

surrounding the White House; defying it

bring in troops; martial law  if they dared

brave fellow workers remained

the night it looked like the start of revolution.

no more Republican-Democrat hegemony

Senate and Congress resigned or hanged

torn down the statues of a racist time

 

life in the States getting worse I ask

did we expats escape in time?

thanks to a buy-out to save the city money,

marginalized by time with retired pension

by old friends and everyone on the street

but I never lost sight of the deterioration

of justice, liberty, and workers' rights

I didn't jump ship, 

but it didn't drag me down  

 

radical friends in Brooklyn don’t have a choice

as I turn off the TV on a foreign shore

of finding how horrible unable to stop

while comrades have to live in the muck

should I really give a fuck

in these years, who would begrudge me

a cabin near Walden Pond with my wife

underground near a Han River road

the only route an old rebel could go.

June 25, 2020

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