I Feel Sad ~ by James Kavanaugh

I feel sad about my country lately,
when damn near everyone I know thinks it's okay
to take money away from the disabled and the old,
As long as we increase military spending
and are certain beyond all paranoia
that we can take Russia out faster and more completely
than Russia can take us out.

My buddy Danny tells me that we're getting rid of the freeloaders
And, I know damn well he doesn't mean the rich people
who invest in feed lots they don't see or want,
or get oil and mineral and agricultural allowances
they don't need or deserve.

I confess, I've occasionally wondered about
some of the people I see with food stamps,
and I suppose I've bitched my share about welfare.
But, I do notice that the most expensive restaurants
are still crowded,
that the Mercedes are as common as VW's once were,
that Fifth Avenue and Rodeo Drive seem as active as ever,
while the aged and the poor seem shabbier and more defeated
than I've ever seen them in my lifetime,
far too intimidated and nervous even to whisper of revolution.

I feel sad about my country lately because it lost it's morals
somewhere between Korea and Watergate.
And, lost it's heart somewhere between this recession and the last.

Now strangers buy our banks and the immigrants our fast foods.
And, we take any dollar or ruble we can get
to satisfy an appetite as insatiable as the fear that creates it.
Content to build cheap barracks and call them homes,
content to widen the massive gulf between rich and poor,
content above all to defend a country
with the expensive nuclear trinkets of a paranoia
bred of greed and fear and most unmanly men.

I never knew a brave nation could be so reprehensible,
that a dollar could mean so much or a life so little...
and I'm very sad.

From the book Maybe If I Loved You More
Written by James Kavanaugh 1982
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