National Disgrace

It started like a comedy
The escalator speech
America’s most hated boss
Descending out of reach
The cameramen who rolled their eyes
The journalists who knew
Today’s delusion couldn’t last
Beyond the interview

But somehow all his talk of crimes
& cover-ups & walls
Spoke to his target audience
& packed arena halls
Their red hats flashing in the stands
Like rags before a bull
Made rage and loss their higher cause
& every heart was full

But could we then have known
We were confronting face to face
Not just another jaded millionaire
But our national disgrace

The migrant sons & daughters
Thrown in cages & afraid
Called for the missing parents
Separated in a raid
The cries of blood & soil echoed
Through a darkened street
Where torches lit the statues
That mourned slavery’s defeat

The lies, once so outrageous
Soon became a point of view
Believed as much as proven fact
The most believed, least true
His former foes paid homage
To the powers he abused
Or ended up in exile: blamed,
Insulted & accused

Did they suspect by then
That swept away without a trace
They were just the latest casualties
Of our National Disgrace?

The Book he swore his oath on
Soon became another prop
To raise before a battered church
Used for a photo op
His unmarked troops & agents,
Shields ready, formed a line
For him, just one life mattered
& it wasn’t yours or mine

He hired & fired flatterers
Who sanctified the gun
Watched as a new contagion
Spread & covered up the sun
The rest of us stood by, the toll
More frightening every day
He shrugged behind the podium,
“Soon, it will go away”

How often did we overlook
Deception in the space
Between his words of nonsense
& our national disgrace?

An empire built on hoaxes, empty slogans like “You’re fired”
The women that he silenced & the strongmen he admired
The NDAs & legal briefs that whistleblowers feared
The Russian bots who struck & disappeared

Will the postal service crash
Like the economy he wrecked?
He’ll sow doubts about Election Day
But what can we expect
From someone who’s lived all his life
Inside a golden tower
Bloated with dreams of grandeur
Drunk on property & power?

There’s a time for action
& a time to bear the weight
A time to ask for guidance
& a time to keep the faith
A time to gather in the streets
& make our voices heard
A time to cast our ballots
& to have the final word

But what world will we discover
In the moment we erase
The cruelty & the high crimes of
Our National Disgrace?