American Nightmare - Thomas Smith

[Larry Robinson]

American Nightmare

I'm in bed with America.
America is writhing and moaning in her sleep,
twisting the bed sheets around her
as if coiled in the grip of a giant boa constrictor.
America whimpers in her sleep
and turns her head to the left and to the right.
America is having a nightmare.

America is dreaming that the Inquisition
  is back with its old, unimproved tortures.
America is dreaming that the British won
  the Revolutionary War and that Franklin,
  Washington and Jefferson were hanged at Valley Forge.
America is dreaming that she must increase
  her nuclear arsenal because being able
  to destroy the world 5,000 times over isn¹t enough
  if Russia can destroy the world 6,000 times over.
America is dreaming that the southern plantations
  have risen from the dust, and the whips and manacles
  the torch and the hood and the noose.
America is dreaming that water is rising
  around her house and she can¹t get out
  because the EPA has boarded up the doors and windows.
America is dreaming that drinking melted polar ice
  has changed her children into Syrian refugees.
America is dreaming that her babysitter
  is a registered sex offender.
America is dreaming that her real parents
  are dead and impostor parents are forcing
  her into the family business of carnival geeking.
America is dreaming that Lincoln has just
  shot everyone in Ford¹s Theater.
America is dreaming that she¹s feeling faint
  after drinking the cup handed to her by Putin.
America is dreaming that she has nothing left
  to eat but the money dragged from the vaults
  after the last billionaire committed suicide.
America is dreaming that Whitman and Emerson
  have pulled up their grave plots and
  relocated them to Ontario.
America is dreaming that all the blood shed by patriots
  in her wars has congealed into a malignant tumor
  kept in a secret room in the White House.
America is dreaming that Henry Ford has
  returned from the dead to help the President
  rewrite the Constitution in 144 characters.
America is dreaming that when the Pilgrims
  go out to the woods for the first Thanksgiving
  all they can find to shoot are skeletons.
America is dreaming that the Italians and Irish
  and Poles have been sent back where they came from
  across the Atlantic in individual wooden washtubs.
America is dreaming that beneath the site of the World Trade Center
  are anti-towers deep underground where
  the real masterminds of September 11th
  are plotting a new attack.
America is dreaming that the President has hacked
  Jesus¹s twitter account
  and is repealing the Sermon on the Mount.
America is dreaming that a tiny severed hand
  is creeping along the floor like a pale spider
  toward the Button.
America is dreaming that a vast stone head
  from an exploded planet¹s Mount Rushmore
  is hurtling toward Indiana.
America is dreaming ‹ STOP!

America, can you hear me?
(I¹m shaking you by the shoulders.)
I wouldn¹t be in bed with you if I didn¹t love you.
Spare yourself this nightmare.
It doesn¹t have to be this way.
There is still time.

America, dear America, please wake up!

- Thomas Smith