Spare Me: 4th of July 2022

Spare me your red, white and blue claptrap

I don’t want to hear it this year

not in 2022,

when theocrats in dusky judicial robes

strip our rights away

by twisting the law to impose their 18th century notions

on the rest of us;

Spare me myths of wise Founding Fathers, 

George Washington was a greedy land speculator,

and the sage of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson, had a yen

for Negro flesh and spread his pale seed among the people

he owned,

never once believing that 

all men are created equal;

Spare me tales of divinely inspired destiny,

wave your blood-soaked stars & stripes someplace else,

because no moral God could condone centuries of chattel slavery,

Black men, women, and children bought, sold, traded, 

insured, mortgaged, beaten, whipped, 

raped,

burned alive and lynched at will;

atone for that and we can speak of Liberty

and Justice for all; atone 

for genocide on the plains, for the Trail of Tears and

Wounded Knee, 

for the invasion of Haiti

Mexico

the Philippines and 

Guatemala

for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for Afghanistan and

Iraq;

Spare me your fireworks until Donald Trump 

is held to account for attempting a coup;

every minute the sociopathic former president 

and his traitorous retinue walk free

they mock the rule of law

and make the Department of Justice a euphemism;

Spare me your patriotic speeches and odes to democracy

as long as Mitch McConnell

runs the U.S. Senate like his personal kingdom;

Spare me your 4th of July sales, deals, discounts

I’m not buying;

Spare me your backyard BBQ’s and all-American BS

as long as white Christian fascists

care more for the unborn than they do for the living,

and venerate their guns more than their wives,

sisters and

daughters;

Spare me, America, until you muster

the moral courage to look in the mirror

and not flinch at the 

reflection

that makes you so

uncomfortable and afraid.