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Home / Issue 34 / America, No Vacancy

America, No Vacancy

By Arrie Barnes Porter

America, where are your spacious skies? Where has your

Beauty gone? Sublime call of time and retribution has

Chased away your alibi of indifference.

Day trader, your amber waves surrender their oceans of grainy democracy to

Earthly wamble. You reigned in mountains of royalty, yes, purple. But where is your

Fruit? Or is it Charlottesville, a cacophonous choir of zealots who

Claim love but demonstrate hate. America, America!

God’s grace cannot be found as COVID sheds its virus-tinged complexion throughout

Humanity, it is no respecter of person or cash.  Yo ass is out.

In fact, you ask why but know the answer. You have lost your first love.

Jesus help us! Do not leave us to determine our path.

King of Life, Oni, deliver us from this tabernacle of sorrow. 

Lend us your character and we will be renewed. No other

Marks will we wear, in or out of style. No longer

Nonchalant about every other

Over morrow, or even today. America will find her way. We

Pray for forgiveness, for peace and a spirit that emboldens us to care, even in

Quiet times. Shake her so she

Remembers when we held her up in days past, not because she was deserving, just because. And

Soon payment for her extravagances will be due. America, there is no justification

To having crowned yourself with good? You believe brotherhood is

Unsafe. Change your mind and your destiny will change. Cede your point of

View that only Norwegian shores are worthy of entering you but not those other countries.

Remember what you called ‘em?

With your lips, whisper a song of thanksgiving. Deny your

Xenophobic mind set. Empty.

Your heart and know that at

Zero is not where you want to begin, if indeed, you are flowing from sea to shining sea.

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