Captain?
Captain!
Captain, I cannot see!
Hear that I am blind and forsaken
and utterly disillusioned.
I find no nation, nor country
nor foundation, nor cohesion.
Yes! I am here! I am American!
But, Captain…
I am adrift without preservation
on a moonless sea, heat stroked and thirsty
and when the sun rises, it's not for the better.
Waves relentlessly crash from all directions
And I'm swallowing salt and gasping for air,
fighting with reason for my preservation
because I believe I must.
Captain?
Captain!
Captain, for the brine in my eyes,
I cannot behold the sea nor
bright stars nor broad stripes
nor proof that our Banner
has not fallen too quietly
downward against the pole
because the wind refuses to blow.
Glory?
Have you come loose
in the night and, like me,
are somewhere somehow lost
adrift and bereft of Hope or Care
because no one salutes in this darkness?
Captain?
Captain!
Captain, Land Ho!
Rise up and ring the bell!
Bring us to port and welcome heroes Home
the Brave and Free, the Undaunted and Survivors
Ticker tape us all in Princely Corvettes
again into the heart of Our nation!
We have wept and sweat and bled and died
We've razed those who rose against Us
We called upon our John Wayne ideology
and unsheathed Bowie's frontier knife
to consolidate our Manifest Destiny!
Captain?
Captain!
Captain, I'm not nearly Home.
Still this ground is
hallowed and uncertain
the horizon sets daunting and unfamiliar.
I am not sure footed
I am stateside and mainlanded
upon these docks, still I stand
ill at ease, my spirit is all but broken.
The loss of Glory haunts me viciously
with racing heart grasping every breath over
again in fear and anger and blood and hatred
and fucking salt water tears.
Captain, the air of this freedom
tastes of copper pennies
smells of diesel fuel and BBQ
and sounds echo like its last call.
Captain?
Captain!
Captain, please say something
about how this land has taken Our all
and our children and their grandchildren.
Remind the discontented and disenchanted
and those struggling to be free
and those struggling to speak
and every One who's struggling
yearning striving and suffering
for the common goal to be
American
are.
Captain?
You understand
this land has taken to me, personally
as I've taken to it, unequivocally
I am made of it. I belong to it.
I'll never be apart from it.
So to speak I believe I must.
Captain!
Upon your Honor.
Stare steadfast into the future
as a beacon from the past and speak
clearly to light the path forward
for ever following every generation
from whence to where we will come,
bellow your bard throated "Onward!"
Captain,
It is necessary
We chose You to lead us
in Honor, Truth and Integrity
so NONE are lost nor forsaken.
It is your charge to see no bones
lay complicit in our Earth
swaddled in bull shit.
