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?
Love those, Tom. Great idea, using poetry and old standards to take our collective temperature at this time in history.