Another World

Like an old cloth, torn and fraying
It came like a clarion call
To illustrate the saying
United we stand, divided we will fall
A thin veneer torn by disease
Shredded, the great con laid bare
Come from across the seas
Now floating in the air

Like a corpse that’s lying exposed
That all of us now can see
All that the cadaver shows
About a society
The veil of fantasy lifted
That gives us at least some idea how
Another world is possible
And I can hear her breathing now

Like the red blood that flows from the bullet
Whether coated in rubber or not
Like the faces you see in the helmet
Reflecting the thickening plot
Driven by such a villain
As a thing exponential allows
It says another world is possible
And I can hear her breathing now

Like the pallor on so many faces
On every end of the town
On the murals in so many places
Boarded up and long ago shut down
Making all the connections
Between the mule and the plow
That another world is possible
And I can hear her breathing now

Like the smoke rising up coast to coast
With formations that brighten the skies
Like Lord Thomas Jefferson’s ghost
His victims no longer disguised
As his visage falls into the river
Like the skull of an old sacred cow
That says another world is possible
And I can hear her breathing now