Ode to Citizen’s United (The Corruption-Spangled Banner)
Oh, say can you see by the sunset’s late light…
What so proudly we hailed at morning’s first gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars now doom us to fight,
O’er the ramparts, we watch, so miserably screaming?
See the money’s gold glare, FOX lies bursting in air?
Solid proof through this night that the hate is out there.
Oh, say does that corporate-stained banner now bleed…
O’er this fat land of ignorance, this sad home of greed?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of vast wealth,
Where the haughty one percent in dread silence repose,
What is that which the breeze, o’er slumbering stealth,
As it fitfully blows, FOX used to conceal, to disclose?
Now it catches the gleam of the twilight’s last beam,
Its full shame reflected now, blood-red in the stream:
‘Tis the corporate-stained banner! Oh long may it bleed…
O’er this land of ignorance and this new home of greed!
And whence the greedy who so lightly engage…
Wreaking havoc thru war and battle’s “solution,”
Leaving our home and ourselves forever in rage?!
Our blood has been sucked for foul lies & pollution.
No refuge can save us, now mere hireling & slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in despair doth bleed…
O’er the land of ignorance and the home of greed!
Oh! Thus be it ever, when sleeping citizens don’t stand…
Between their beloved homes and war’s desolation!
Cursed with intolerance and pain, will our troubled land…
Bitch-slap the one percent that birthed this abomination?
And bitch-slap we must, when our cause it is just,
And this will be our motto: “In gold is not our trust.”
Lest the corruption-spangled banner forever bleed…
O’er the land of ignorance and the home of greed!
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 