Barbaric Yawp

(with a nod to Billy Tuggle)

America’s too in love
with Whitman’s barbaric yawp
ever to offer honor soft words
spoken kindly.

This is why I’ve almost
stopped offering the latter to anyone:
it left me feeling almost
un-American to do that

and what I’ve been called 
for daring to care about 
others, there is no need to repeat;
I’m sure you know the words.

The single cry over
the collective voice.
Barbaric insistent
bastardization of language

toward selfish ends.
Not communication
but announcement, 
claim-staking; 

America, barbarian
nation, founded on
conquest, enslavement,
and plunder. And yet

somewhere here
are communities where people
speak quietly under the Shadow,
in spite of it,

and only raise their voices
in amplification of what was said
while the nation wasn’t listening,
or in song. That’s part of 

America too, although I think
it needs a different word than American
to describe where it comes from:
human, perhaps.  Civilized, maybe.