The nation whose breath is money

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was the grand old man of the Beat generation—poet, artist, bookseller and publisher. Although he didn’t consider himself a Beat poet, he certainly captured those times.

Ferlinghetti identified as a philosophical anarchist, and he opposed totalitarianism all his life. In 2006 (in the midst of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rise of the Tea Party and other bad juju), he wrote a response to Khalil Gibran’s “Pity the Nation”. Nineteen years on, with the Tea Baggers having morphed to MAGAts, this poem is even more pertinent than it was when he wrote it.

Listen to it as you read it, let the sharp edges pierce you and the fury and disgust envelop you. That’s what good poetry does.

Let it ignite your own anger and help you focus on actions to change this current reality. That line about letting our rights erode, man... 

“Pity the Nation”
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to  erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
 My country, tears of thee
 Sweet land of liberty!

 

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