The Poets

The US of A
is a moral dead letter;
it can starve, torture and bomb,
but no longer persuade with words.

The last coin
of its moral capital
has been spent in the war on terror,
and now there’s no one left to fool –

Not its enemies abroad
or its own people at home,
while its poets retreat into abstraction
and navel gazing –

Smart enough
not to invite ridicule
by making obeisance to The Beast
or risk their hides by challenging it.

Jon Taylor lives in Nashville, TN. He can be reached at taylor.jon440@gmail.com. Read other articles by Jon.