The Head of America

The air is sick with byte and wave
Pre-empting every thought
Hate and covet, whine and crave
Become what you are not
It comes in through the eye and ear
It oozes through the skin
It tells you who to loathe and fear
It redefines all sin
Love thy neighbor?
Well, depends on who thy neighbor be
The stranger’s in our midst, they say,
Yearning to breathe free,
Wretched refuse, huddled mass,
From asylum gates they pour
Madmen from the underclass
Storm the golden door.

Asylum sought
Asylum not
Asylum caught
Asylum shot.

The only good stranger, say the waves and bytes
In the disrupted Head of America,
Is a dead one.

But I, too, was once a stranger in the land of Egypt.
And my days, too, are numbered.

­– Greg Blake Miller, 2-10-25