If you don’t see me in the parade today
Do not think I love my country less
Dizzy with hunger
deaf from want
if I stumble through the anthem
I may black out before the pledge
object of ceaseless ridicule
from children of moneyed fathers
whose stolen wealth has depleted the land
whose moral plague
has sickened our senses
If you don’t see me in the parade today
Do not think I love my country less
But I know many of my mates will come
from those GRA mansions
where every gate tells the world to
BEWAREOF THE DOG
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where fathers are cruelly rich
and entire broods squirm in unearned wealth
where cats eat from silver bowls
and cockroaches are fat like feathered chicks
Oh what a wonder
seeing those mates scampering
out of gleaming SUV’s
their uniforms dutifully ironed
their silver shoes and golden feet,
filing up, marching, singing, saluting
blissfully unaware of the rot and ruin
their thieving parents have wrought
First published in Songs of the Season; updated and re-used here with significant amendments.the future that is ours
they have so blindly undone
Oh what a wonder
shaking our nation’s hands
with such unequal fingers!
If you don’t see me in the parade today
Never think I love my country
Concluded