A collection of ten new poems
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Anthem
It was the most exciting country in the modern age. It had
mountains and rivers and cities and towns and villages and prairies
and canyons and dead ends and avenues and broadways and even
a sunset strip. A Big Muddy. It was an empire, and a folk song, and
a parade. A myriad of languages and skin color and appearances.
It had been away in world wars and bombed and also been bombed
upon, millions had died and also been born. The sun came up, the
sun went down. Stars at night overlooked all of it. Nothing was
spared. It was working, not perfectly, which is what made every
day involving. If the land was perfect, the sun and moon and stars
wouldn't have been needed. They came to help. All the people had
to do was also help themselves, and one another. It was already
there the way each person was made with two legs and two arms
and hands and two ears and eyes and a mouth that could talk. The
ability to talk! Animals couldn't talk but the people could talk to the
animals, they could talk to anything. To themselves, to a stranger, to
a loved one, while wandering lost in the woods. You are never lost
because you can talk. Until that day you refuse to talk and instead
you lie, which isn't talk, but backward words. And one comes and
lies and then another sees that easy advantage and they lie and soon
a room is lying, a whole building, all the town, into the bright lights
of the cities and soon lies sweep across the prairies. In less time than
you think everything that was working well, is now broken. A vast
majority have decided broken, somehow, is best. There are millions
of people who will now take over and lead this broken existence. In
basic electronics it is called a loose wire. Left to its own devices, it
will burn a house down.
~ Bob Arnold
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