Song for America
Fernando Esteban Flores
May 28, 2022
XLVIII
(For the children of Uvalde & their teachers)
Everybody’s got a pistol everybody’s got .45
The philosophy seems to be at least as near as I can see
When all the other folks give up theirs I’ll give up mine
Poet Gil Scott shook things up with those lines
But politics & partisans got people on the run
Arm teachers worship god with a loaded gun
AR 15 ok at 18 & all the weapons in between
NRA jiggles jingles to state their case
A good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun
& the homespun jive runs amok to defend a deadly right
Shout it out shoot it out school zones kill zones
Second Amendment trumps debate
Blast the eagle in a sea of bloody hate
Bomb the ballot box coup d’ etat
Liquidate the nation’s assets
In broad daylight
You don’t need an explanation
When everyone fears extermination
End the so-called Constitution
Beacon on the hill bunker hill
Remember the Alamo come & take it
Give me liberty or give me death
Bullets back bluster bluster breeds bigots
But you can’t fake the grief stuffed caskets
A pyrrhic victory for civil defeat
Common good fails common sense
Common sense lacks any consequence
& all our better angels bolt in disgrace
Everybody’s got a pistol everybody’s got .45
The philosophy seems to be at least as near as I can see
When all the other folks give up theirs I’ll give up mine
Fernando Esteban Flores is a native son of Tejas, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, published three books of poetry: Ragged Borders, Red Accordion Blues, & BloodSongs available through Hijo del Sol Publishing, published in multiple journals, reviews, newspapers, and online sites, selected in 2018-19 by the Department of Arts & Culture of the City of San Antonio, with support from Gemini Ink for his poem Song for America V (Yo Soy San Antonio) as one of 30 poems/poets to commemorate the City’s Tricentennial anniversary, and recently named poetry editor of the Catch the Next Journal of Ideas & Pedagogy.
