American Carnage

Not the export it used to be,

nothing like the glory days

Hiroshima, Vietnam, Cambodia;

still popular at home tho’

nearly twelve thousand gun deaths a year

the gun barrel points both ways.

This is not much of a poem, is it?

That last metaphor was a bit clumsy

and there’s no music in statistics

but there is a rhyme in that last line

and there’s assonance in ‘American Carnage’

and there is an ass in the White House

but enough about that

stay away from the low hanging fruit

we need a rhyme

carnage, baggage, garbage, image

imagine all the people

that’s what this situation needs

a protest singer, a protest song

three chords and a chorus

that we can sway and link arms to

Where are you

Josh (Ritter)

Michael (Stipe)

Bruce ?