As the earth deludes my mind
Dissolving into a chasm of self righteousness
Sending my treasured inquiries
Dashing from one dead end to the next

The American soul
Slaves away on the eastern shore
Dealing in iron
Steel and lumber
Some shades darker
Others shades lighter

Our national spirit
Thrives among the disheveled
The bruised and battered
Those used and bartered
It is the engine of the bold and ambitious
Artisans, painters and poets
Dreamers and deceivers
Rockefeller, Hemingway and Capone

And as these words delude my mind
Dissolving into a chasm of self righteousness
Sending my treasured inquiries
Dashing from one dead end to the next

What some christen honor
Is the scourge of a displaced many
What many call honor
Is to spite the downtrodden few
What we’ve long called honor
Has spilled from a boundless array of tongues
Curved to the pleasure of differing norms
The lost dynasties, passing on this tainted gift

And as these words delude my mind
Dissolving into a chasm of self righteousness
Sending my treasured inquiries
Dashing from one dead end to the next

My night terrors dance
Amongst the absolute dark
Cloaked in a dreary overcoat of peril
They cackle at me, once my eyelids fall
Only to dash away in a panic
From the glowing rise of the east

Night terrors clash
With battled hardened reveries
Swirling in a heated tussle
Thrashing about the mad earth
Into the eyes of beseeched souls
They avert their heartache
The harrowing pain,
Buzzing about the scores of marred craniums

In our collective sigh of anguish
We sink into our peaceful reveries
Drawing inward each precious breath
And exhaling forth, our call to press onward

And as these words delude my mind
Dissolving into a chasm of self righteousness
Sending my treasured inquiries
Dashing from one dead end to the next
They may rest for now
They may rest for now