fall of empire poems Archives - Best Poetry Online

The Fall of America | Truth Teller

The fall of America
Didn’t happen because
Of outside forces
It happened because we forgot
What democracy means

We stood by and watched
As religious zealots
Worked tirelessly to take away
Our fellow citizen’s rights
Denying them equality

We watched as gun worshipers
Redefined the constitution
And sold us the falsehood
That we should all be
Very afraid and violent

Too many of us believed the false narrative
That government is the problem
Rather than a reflection
Of who we are
An institution that can help people

Too many of us watched and listened to
Propaganda pretending to be news
Telling us to be afraid of each other
Supporting the creeping threat
Of authoritarianism

Too many of us bought the lie
That money is everything
And corporations would
Fill the holes
Making all our problems go away

Too many of us believed patriotism
Was waving the flag
While hating immigrants
And anyone who
Wanted equal rights

Too many of us stopped caring for each other
Labeling people who didn’t
Agree with our aggressive/regressive
Positions the enemy
Spitting on people who believe in love

We destroyed ourselves
By letting the people who
Least care about our country
Run everything
For their own gain

In Trump’s America | Dale Champlin

August 22, 2023 / Poetry Website / destroying democracy poems, fall of empire poems, loss poems, poems about social justice, social justice poems / Leave a Comment

As children we sang, “Oh beautiful for spacious skies,” to America.
Imagining our superiority, we knew nothing but lies about America.

We were so innocent, we didn’t know we were great.
We were so young, we were proud to pledge allegiance to America.

We stood by our desks and put our hands over our first grade hearts.
Now that we are older we clench our fists at Trump’s America.

We can’t understand why blue-collar workers put their trust in him.
Our president scoffs at laws, doesn’t pay taxes, and gets rich off America.

While Trump postures behind a curtain of privilege—
the drug addicted and homeless pass out in the streets of America.

He back combs his pompadour, bullies his opponents and incites our enemies,
taunts, twitters and is ignorant about the history of America.

Each night we go to bed, thinking it can’t get any worse—
but every morning it has. I guess we were wrong about America.

I know missiles are pointed at our capitol, the rust belt and me.
In the land of the brave, how can I be brave if I don’t feel safe in America?

We build fences, break promises and turn our backs on climate change.
It’s no wonder the whole world has lost faith in America.

Try to breathe all this red and white smoke until you turn blue—
amid forest fires and hurricanes, children are hungry right here in America

While the rich get richer the poor can’t afford an education.
Our nation is divisible by money, race and gender here in America.

When sincerity is a thing of the past how do we know what is true?
But half of us still buy the lies about our great again America.

How can children at church or school be used for target practice?
How did we get here we wonder? Fearing the worst, we weep for America.

Song of America | Gil Hoy

August 21, 2023 / Poetry Website / destroying democracy poems, diseased society poems, fall of empire poems, poems about social justice, poems online, social justice poems / Leave a Comment

I see you, Walt Whitman, an American
Rough, a cosmos! I see you face to face!

I see you and the nameless faceless
Faces in America’s ageless crowds of men
and women who you saw in your mind’s eye.

I see you crossing the river on your ferry.
I see you walking down America’s public roads

Where everyone is worthy. Neither time,
Place nor distance separates.

II.

For you once saw the corrupt currents,
Fast flowing into the land that you loved.
And you once saw that which had departed

With the setting sun, half an hour high,
For when another is degraded,
so are you and I.

You once saw what had flowed in with the
Rising flood-tides feverishly pounding,

Sea water soaked—saturated,
With exploitation, bribery,
Falsehood and maladministration.

III.

When you saw the motionless wings of
Twelfth-month sea-gulls, when you walked

On Manhattan Island, when you watched the
Great ships of Manhattan, north and west—

Did you see Wall Street banks seizing
Homes of your beloved countrymen,
Crossing in their fragile ferryboats?

The carpenters, the Quakers, the scientists,
The opium eaters—the immigrants, the squaws,

The boatmen, the blacksmiths—-the farmers,
Mechanics, the sailors and priests?

IV.

Did you see monstrous megaton
Corporations feasting on America’s flesh and
Blood, nameless faceless parasites sucking the

Marrow from the bones of your beloved land,
Like a malevolent disease?

For you saw very clearly the political and economic
Malfunctioning mutant ties that connect us.
Neither time, place nor distance separates.

And you saw very clearly the sickly green sludge
Secreted by lobbyists to their bought and sold

Henchmen soldier baby-kissers—slowing,
Stopping the flow of nourishing rushing sea
Tides into your revered democracy.

VI.

You saw dark evil patches—the clinging selfish
Sinister grasp of the flourishing one per cent
Oligarchs, who lusted, grubbed, lied, stole—

Were greedy, shallow, sly, angry, vain, cowardly,
malignant—Seeking only to hold on to their
Spoils and preserve the status quo.

VII.

Each still furnishes its part towards the death of
America’s democracy. Each still furnishes its part

Towards destroying her soul. The mocking bird still
Chants his tearful musical shuttle to the barefooted

Bareheaded boy, and the final word superior for
America may still be her Death, Death, Death,

Death. And you, lonely father, graybeard more
Beloved—the generous sea, she’s whisper’d me, too.