Poems: Pledge, Star Spangled Question

I pledge allegiance to sanity. And to the republic, I hope we can keep it.

Pledge  

I pledge allegiance to the flag 

but don’t hold me to it, and to

the republic for which it stands 

I can only say I hope we keep it,

one nation embarrassing God, 

indivisible hardly, going insane,

with liberty and justice and basic 

human decency all on the wane, 

lies multiplying like feral cats

and facts don’t matter one whit. 

I pledge allegiance to not losing

my mind. Just hope I can keep it.

* In 1787, a woman at a dinner party asked Benjamin Franklin if the United States of America was a republic or a monarchy. “A republic,” he said, “if we can keep it.”

Star Spangled Question

O say, can you see
By the Don’s pearly whites 

How a vile demagogue can      
Seize control of voters’ minds  
 
And how such a thieving can   
Instigate corruption and hate     

The nation we so proudly hailed
Assailed in freedom’s last gleaming

A perilous fight streaming red glare
Lies and deception bursting in air

Democracy crackling through the night      
Come dawn, will the flag still be there?
 
O say, will that star-spangled banner still wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?